


A game of inches

by 5ofSpades, theoneandonlyzoom



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: M/M, Pre-Episode VII, Ren is immature, What else is new?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2018-10-01
Packaged: 2019-07-21 01:47:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16149974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/5ofSpades/pseuds/5ofSpades, https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoneandonlyzoom/pseuds/theoneandonlyzoom
Summary: [A 2018 Kylux Big Bang submission]Ren’s been with the First Order for almost two years now and has made it his solemn duty to drive his co-commander up the wall whenever the opportunity presents itself. For the most part, Ren’s thoroughly enjoying this unspoken game between them, although he has serious doubts Hux feels the same way. In fact, Ren might’ve taken this whole thing a step too far when he spontaneously decides to follow Hux on his annual visit to a totalitarian planet, where the General usually negotiates with the industrial magnate Jorde Layn for the latest technology. Not only is Layn a clever, handsome, and disgustingly charming individual, but he also has the necessary intellect and wit to banter with Hux in a way that sounds suspiciously as though they deeply respect each other. In fact, it almost sounds as though they’re flirting…Ren obviously needs to do something to remedy this situation.[TLDR: Ren’s a stupid, jealous, entitled brat who lets his dick drag him into the worst kind of trouble. As mortified as Hux is, he somehow manages.]





	A game of inches

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This fic was semi-inspired by the Winter Olympics. I realize this sounds odd, but one of the curling announcers had a penchant for saying “this is a game of inches”, which constantly sent my wife into a fit of giggles. Clearly, I am the more mature adult in this relationship (even if I decided to use this as a writing prompt for the kyluxbigbang this year).
> 
> By some miracle of god, [5ovSpades](http://5ovspades.tumblr.com/) was saddled as my artist. She is a true wonder at her work and came up with some of the most entertaining doodles for our fic. If you ever get the chance, please check out her artwork on tumblr. You won’t regret it.
> 
> [Aside: I've included the links to more of 5ovSpades doodles in the final Author's Note. They're as beautiful as everything else she's created for this fic. :) ]

He’s not a child anymore.

Biologically, he’s twenty-four standard years old; mentally, he’s mature enough to merit a little respect, at least more so than whatever the General is willing to afford him on any given day. He’s a hulking mass of muscle, a skilled swordsman and a pilot, and the Master of the Knights of Ren. People the whole universe over fear him—people who haven’t even _met_ him fear him. A man of his reputation demands respect.

Except from Hux, apparently

And that lack of fear or respect is never quite so obvious as when the newly minted General finds a reason to tell Kylo ‘ _No_ ’ to his face, such as he is now, standing in the corridor just outside Loading Bay 3. He’s wearing his great coat and cap, which means he’s on his way to conduct official business, and there’s an overnight bag hanging from his right hand, implying that this should be a long trip. His rigid posture and pinched expression foretell a lengthy argument as to why Ren hasn’t been invited to tag along, even if Ren’s never been in the habit of planning joining him on missions before.

“These are mere businessmen,” Hux mutters, his gaze sliding past Ren toward the loading bay entrance. “They’ve been trading almost exclusively with the First Order for the last eight years. Your expertise is _not_ required.”

 _“Then why the negotiations, General?”_ Ren asks, voice distorted by the vocoder of his mask. Truthfully, he doesn’t care why Hux needs to speak with these people face to face. He just caught a whiff of excitement when Hux announced the _Finalizer_ was making a three-cycle stopover at Saxt-5 for a meeting with some industrialist named Jorde Layn, and Ren wasn’t about to let slide an opportunity to make this stuffy little toy soldier’s life miserable.

Hux’s cold glare shifts back to Ren, the corner of his eyes pinched with irritation. Kylo can practically hear the gears turning inside his head as Hux tries to formulate an escape route around his hulking co-commander.

“Sir Layn’s company specializes in synthesizing new alloys for our ships,” the General finally relents, deciding on a straightforward answer as his best bet of getting out of there in a timely fashion. “He’s invited me for a demonstration. The only ‘negotiations’ will be a perfunctory consultation of what portion of our annual funds should be allocated to his work for _Starkiller_ base. I promise you, there will be absolutely _nothing_ for you to do during this trip.” Hux pauses a moment to let the completely humdrum nature of this visit sink in. “Unless, of course, you’re suddenly interested in our finances again? If so, I have several reports you can review during our stay.”

Ren has already tried—and failed—to skim through the General’s reports before. They’re drier than the sands of Tatooine. He once considered reading them aloud to a prisoner, pre-interrogation, to see if it softened up their mind, but he was swiftly reminded by Lieutenant Hassney that there were protocols that needed to be followed, and that inadvertently sharing organizational secrets with a suspected Resistance member is a big fat _No_ in their line of work, even if said prisoner is unlikely to make it out of this ordeal alive.

Hux knows when he’s boxed Ren into a corner, as is evident by the slight upward curl at the corner of his lips. Either Ren takes this opportunity to annoy the General for three glorious days straight at the cost of doing _real_ work for a change, _or_ he leaves the General to his peace and enjoys his own freedom aboard the _Finalizer_ while it lasts.

As tempted as he is to go with the former, business meetings bore him to the point of tears. Thankfully, only one of them is required to file out the paperwork for all the comings and goings of their organization, and Hux is usually all too happy to take that duty upon himself. It’s about the only thing Ren will let him have without a fight, and he’s in no rush to shake up that arrangement now.

“No?” Hux clarifies, the smug bastard. He takes his time as he maneuvers around Ren in the narrow corridor, practically gliding past him. “I thought not.”

It’s at this point that Ren _almost_ storms off in a huff to terrify whoever the General left in command of the bridge. It’s also at this point that Hux _almost_ breezes scot-free onto the waiting shuttle that will whisk him away to an admittedly wonderful stayover on Saxt-5, the glimmering blue oceanic world several thousand kilometers below their ship. The Force, however, has something else in mind for them, manifesting its influence in a seemingly innocent thought from Captain Phasma as she inspects her newest recruits in the loading bay, absently pondering how much Hux’s recent piss-poor attitude is probably going to improve once he gets laid tonight.

Instead of barreling toward the bridge like a dark spectre from beyond time and space, Ren freezes. It takes a shamefully long time for him process this tidbit of information, and even longer for him to decide what to do with said information. Of course, he doesn’t _actually_ care about Hux’s sex life…beyond knowing whether or not Hux truly has one, of course.

Because Hux shouldn’t.

All this time, Ren thought his co-commander was a master of wiggling out of potentially compromising situations while simultaneously throwing his rivals headfirst into the fire. There’s no way Hux would risk bumping uglies with some civilian on a dystopian planet. The General has trouble trusting anyone when he’s fully upright and in the comfort of his own quarters. There’s just no way he would willingly suffer the indignity of squirming naked in another person’s arms. It would leave him open to attack.

Having (completely irrational) second thoughts now about letting Hux saunter off, Ren pokes his head into the loading bay and watches as the General marches up the ramp of his waiting shuttle. Hux doesn’t notice Ren loitering by the entrance, but Phasma certainly does. Instead of scrutinizing her troops as they practice their parade march for the umpteenth time, she pointedly cranes her head in his direction, wondering quite loudly whether or not he intends to start offing stormtroopers the second Hux lands on Saxt-5.

 _“Sir?”_ she asks, ever so slightly inclining her head now in the direction of Hux’s rising shuttle. She’s starting to connect the dots here.

 _“…I should follow him,”_ he murmurs.

 _“You really shouldn’t,”_ she says, not missing a beat.

The shuttle pauses to stabilize itself midair before darting off through the forcefield into open space.

Ren nods a little to himself, satisfied with his decision. _“I think I will.”_

She sighs, turning back to her troops, experienced enough to recognize a losing battle when she sees one.

He waves someone down to prep his TIE-fighter.

Never let it be said he isn’t willing to go above and beyond the call of duty for a little revenge

~***~

Landing on Saxt-5 is an unnecessary agony.

Ever since Emperor Jafe deposed his father twenty years ago, the number of regulations on the planet has skyrocketed. Ren once glossed over the world’s rocky history in a fit of boredom and was equally disgusted and impressed with the rigidity of Jafe’s laws. There were strict guidelines on everything from what was considered acceptable articles of public clothing to the spacing requirements between street vehicles to the number of duels a person could declare within a fortnight. The consequences for most transgressions, whether big or small, were often death or a lengthy prison sentence. Unless you were rich, of course. Then you simply paid a 100,000 credit fine.

Ren’s is literally one of the last few ships the docking station would permit access to for the day, and that’s only after a lengthy argument with the dockmaster over why the Knights of Ren did not _need_ to send advance notice for an impromptu visit. In fact, he only succeeded in squirming off the waiting list by dropping the Supreme Leader’s name once or twice during their conversation. Snoke poured enough of his mysterious wealth into the economy to buy himself a place on Jafe’s good side, so, naturally, no one could bar his favorite apprentice from performing an unscheduled inspection of the capital city.

However, what Saxt-5 lacks in sensibility, it more than makes up for in scenery. The capital of the planet, Dari Hin, is a maze of tall white buildings and towers preserved under a ginormous glass dome, a necessary precaution against the sun, which has gotten a tad hotter over last millennia and is the reason why the inhabitants of Dari Hin are as pale as Hux despite the blinding light above. Even buried under his black robes, Ren feels pleasantly warm in the midday heat as he makes his way through the crowd of people milling about in the public market by the dock, a maze of wooden stalls and white canopies where the inhabitants sell spices and richly coloured fabrics and small golden idols. He gets more than a few stares, but he’s too often afforded the same treatment aboard the _Finalizer_ by Hux’s junior officers to really notice.

Despite the relative uniformity of Dari Hin’s architecture, Layn’s ‘manor’ isn’t too hard to find. While Hux was already long gone by the time Ren landed, his pilot was still there. He instructed Ren to head straight down the main street for about an hour and then he’d find it on the left-hand side of the road. Couldn’t miss it if he tried.

And he doesn’t, because it’s probably the second tallest building in the city. It’s also one of the few towers with a touch of color in the white stone, a gentle blue that shimmers coyly in the light. And it’s heavily guarded. Ren takes one look at the dozen armed men in grey fatigues stationed at the front door and wonders why he didn’t formulate an excuse for his being here before he decided to crash the proverbial party.

Thankfully, this is one instance in which Ren is able to wave his problems away. Quite literally. While Snoke has expressly prohibited him from using his mind tricks on Hux or any of the General’s closest allies, Ren has otherwise been given a blank cheque to use his powers at his digression. So, he has one of the guards escort him inside to a small courtyard housing a large water fountain and a series of peculiar blue-leafed trees spotted with ruby red flower buds. There he waits in wonderment while either Layn or Hux are summoned, admittedly mesmerized by the rather alluring arrangement. So much so, in fact, that he is caught unaware when his first visitor arrives.

“I didn’t realize the postal droids were still in use.”

Ren snaps his head away from proverbial greenery to size up the man slowly pacing down the stairs leading into the courtyard. Like just about every other fair citizen Ren’s encountered today, this fellow is as blond and blue-eyed and handsome in every conceivable way that Ren is not. From the natural slant of his smile to the devious sparkle in his eye, he’s a perfect male specimen. He’s even as tall as Ren, if perhaps an inch taller, and about just as broad-chested. He probably works out.

Already, Ren hates him.

Ren hates him even more when he realizes the fellow was referring to _him_. As a _postal droid_ …whatever that is.

Ren’s a split second away from wrapping his invisible fingers around this intruder’s throat when he spots Hux a little farther up the stairs, eyes glued to his datapad, brow gently furrowed in concentration. His black uniform has been replaced with grey leggings and a dark green tunic that hangs off his slim figure in an admittedly attractive way.

Ren’s so stunned to see the General in any sort of color, he momentarily forgets what he was so upset about.

Inevitably, Hux looks up from his datapad to see what’s going on, at which point Ren has the privilege of watching the General’s face slacken in surprise a split second before he overestimates the length of the next step and slips down the next two on his heel. He’s saved from sliding further by grabbing hold of the railing at his side and righting his posture almost immediately, but Ren still gets a kick out of seeing the General thrown off balance for once.

Blondie frowns and whips his head around in concern. “Armitage?” he inquires.

…

 _Arm_ itage?

Ren already knows what Hux’s first name is. It’s stupid. It’s also ‘off-limits’—or so Ren was told when he tried using it on the bridge eons ago. It’s a little jarring to hear it again after so many years. It reminds him there’s a human being still somewhere inside the soldier, despite ‘Armitage’s’ best efforts to convince his colleagues otherwise.

Hux, predictably, completely ignores his companion’s concern as he levels one of his trademark glares at Ren, the kind that usually drops the temperature of the room by thirty degrees. Ren feels the weight of it now, a narrow-eyed and unblinking stare that pins him to the spot as Hux slowly finishes his trek down the stairs.

Blondie isn’t blind to the exchange. He turns back to Ren and, smiling in a way that is decidedly satisfied, says, “I take it the two of you are already acquainted?”

Hux relaxes his glare finally, although he remains thin-lipped and noticeably stiff as he says, “This is Lord Kylo Ren, the Master of the Knights of Ren and an apprentice of Supreme Leader Snoke. He serves as my co-commander aboard the _Finalizer_. Ren—” He makes a small gesture toward his handsome companion. “—this is Lord Jorde Layn, my most gracious host.”

“He reminds me of someone,” Layn muses aloud.

Hux sighs and glances down at his datapad, powering it off. With just a hint of annoyance, he says, “Darth Vader, perhaps?”

Layn laughs a little. “Perhaps, yes…Is he also disfigured?”

Ren’s vision takes on a red hue suddenly. His hands curl into fists at his sides.

He’s about two seconds away from Force-punching Layn in the throat when Hux levels him with another look. It’s as solid and unforgiving as stone, his trademark _don’t-you- **dare** -fuck-this-up_ face, although he flings it at Ren with much greater intensity than anything Ren’s ever seen before.

Part of Ren would like to strangle Layn just to piss Hux off, but Snoke requires the magnate’s cooperation for _Starkiller’s_ construction, and Ren knows he’d have a hard time explaining Layn’s death when he’s not even supposed to be on this mission in the first place.

Instead, he begrudgingly undoes the clasps on his helmet and lifts it swiftly off his head. Thankfully, he remembered to shower this morning, so his long dark locks aren’t a ‘personal affront to the First Order’, as Hux too often likes to mutter during their many one-on-one meetings.

Hux clearly looks surprised with how quickly Ren relinquishes his mask; Layn a little less so, although he still turns back to Hux and says, “Why are you all so _young_?”

Ren’s got a few choice words for the man perched on the tip of the tongue—he’s _not_ a child anymore—but Hux has already turned his cold stare on their benefactor, ever at the ready to beat down anyone who tries to badmouth his organization.

“The majority of our officers have been trained since birth,” Hux replies coolly. “As such, we have a lifetime of experience from which to draw our wisdom. However, if you would rather correspond with someone closer to your own age, I believe we still have a few officers from the days of the Empire who have yet to retire.”

Ren doesn’t know why Hux has an obsession with verbose insults, but he kind of likes them. Sometimes Hux delivers them with such a straight face, the object of his ire only vaguely realizes they’ve been insulted. Like Peavey.

“I’m not that old,” Layn replies tartly. And he really isn’t. If Ren had to guess, he’d put the man somewhere in his late thirties. Certainly no more than ten or so years Hux’s senior. 

“I never said you were old,” Hux returns smoothly. He glances up at the wall behind him, at a small chronometer nailed high up in the white stone. “Now, _are_ we or are we _not_ on our way to dinner?”

“Yes, of course.” Layn snaps his fingers, and a servant scurries out of the shade of a nearby tree. It’s an honest effort on Ren’s part not to flinch in genuine surprise when the man materializes out of thin air. “Set another place at the table for our new friend here,” Layn instructs the servant, offering Ren a slick smile, the kind that usually speaks of mischief. “Tuck him between Lieutenant Freya and myself. Perhaps, after he’s had a few drinks, he’ll finally feel comfortable enough to contribute a little to the conversation.”

“I don’t drink,” Ren interjects, brain operating on autopilot. He feels like a moron the second the words leave his mouth.

“My,” Layn breathes, “you _are_ young.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Hux mutters, clearly fed up with this delay. “It’s some religious vow. Can we go now?”

 _Technically_ , Snoke doesn’t give a damn if Ren decides to indulge in a little liquor so long as he can remain standing upright for his missions, but the no-alcohol rule is another carryover from his time under Luke’s tutelage that he hasn’t really had the chance to do away with yet. It’s the second thing he so desperately wants to knock off his list, right after his pledge of chastity. However, he still doesn’t feel like accidentally drinking himself into a stupor would be the best idea with his present company, so he’ll abstain for now.

Seemingly satisfied with Hux’s answer, Layn gestures them toward a second set of stairs that lead up to a long white hall, decorated only sparsely by a few pompous paintings done up with surreal shapes in rich hues. The end of the hall opens into a large dining room with a wide balcony at the far end. A few men and women are seated on the plush white couches on the balcony, with the exception of an older gentleman and Lieutenant Freya, who is similarly out of uniform. She looks keenly interested in what her companion has to say, but their conversation grinds to a halt when she catches sight of Ren mid-sip of her electric pink drink. She chokes on a mouthful of her beverage and turns abruptly away, waving a servant over to help her clean this sudden mess up.

Ren’s not particularly close to Freya (or any of the officers, really), but he knows she’s been accompanying Hux on more missions as of late because she’s up for a promotion but needs to work on her social skills. Ren wonders if his sheer presence there is going to wind up derailing her opportunity. He doesn’t know if he’s happy or upset about that.

The servants scramble quietly to situate another chair at the far end of the table while the other guests rise to join them. There are ten strangers in total, whom Ren believes to be a mix of Layn’s and the FO’s head engineering staff. They’re all middle aged or ancient, with the exception of one eerily young man who has no facial affect whatsoever and a terribly petite woman who keeps giving Ren a leery look.

Layn takes his seat at the head of the table; Hux sits immediately adjacent to him on his right. Once a servant is able to coax the helmet out of Ren’s hand, he’s lead to the empty seat on Layn’s left, settling in next to Freya, who looks about as pale as a ghost.

Thankfully, there are no toasts or opening speeches. Fresh wine is poured for all but Ren, followed by the first course, some kind of soup that tastes infinitely better than the broth served aboard the _Finalizer_. Ren works at it slowly as Hux stares at him from across the table, expression indescribable. He isn’t blinking very much, which is Ren’s only clue that the General is still phenomenally pissed at him for being there.

Layn, of course, throws tinder into the fire when he finally decides to strum up a little conversation. “How long have you known the General, Lord Ren?” he asks.

Ren tries not to slurp his next spoonful of broth—he’s retained the muscle memory of etiquette from his many meals with his mother—as he tries to determine the best way of taking Hux down a peg without leaving himself open to retaliation.

He’ll just have to start small and see where it goes from there.

“Two years now,” Ren replies casually.

From across the table Hux continues with his soup, each motion slow and fluid, staring at Ren with an almost feline intensity, bright-eyed and predatory.

“Two already?” Layn inquires, grinning. “Well, I suppose he _did_ say something about having a co-commander. I’m surprised he never talks about you. You seem like quite the character.”

Ren doesn’t know what that means—not the bit about him being a character, seeing as he’s always gone above and beyond to stand out in the First Order crowd, much to Hux’s displeasure. Rather, it’s the fact that Hux apparently doesn’t take every available opportunity to rant about him. Then again, it’s Hux’s job to draw the public’s attention solely to the best qualities of their organization. So far as he’s probably concerned, Ren is a glaring blemish that needs to be concealed at all costs.

Ren sips at his water, pondering.

“What’s it like working with him?” Layn presses, keeping his eyes on Ren. “He’s rather uptight. Must be challenging.”

“The General presents no challenge whatsoever,” Ren replies, going for a subtle, but deep, dig.

Hux’s eyes narrow almost imperceptibly at him, and yet he says nothing. Just goes on eating his soup.

“How long have you been acquainted?” Ren asks in return.

“Coming on eight years now, I believe.” Finally, Layn peels his gaze away from Ren to stare at Hux. “Almost a third of your life. Isn’t that right, General?”

“More or less,” Hux replies.

Ren doesn’t actually remember how old Hux is, only that he’s got at least half a decade on Ren. That infuriated him once, simply because he couldn’t stand the thought of Hux being _beyond_ him in any capacity. But then Ren hit something of a second growth spurt and gained another inch on Hux, and everything was right in the universe again. He’s broad-shouldered and well built and a Force-user and a man of his own destiny, while Hux would forever remain northing more than a lovely and lithe cog of the First Order machine.

Ren blinks, trying to remind himself that he wasn’t supposed to associate words like ‘lovely’ with the General anymore, not if he doesn’t want to screw up the already tense relationship he had with his co-commander.

Thankfully, neither Hux nor Layn are paying him much attention at the moment.

There’s a curious little quirk at the corner of his Layn’s lips as he says, “We’ve had to suffer each other’s company for a long while now, haven’t we?”

“Too long,” Hux agrees drily.

Admittedly, it’s kind of weird seeing Hux engage in banter with someone other than Ren. Of course, the General has plenty of barbs in his arsenal for whenever he’s thoroughly fed up with one of his officers, but Ren always assumed this little back-and-forth business was something that only ever went on between the two of them.

Ren wonders what he and Hux initially did to piss each other off so much…

The soup is quickly swept away to be replaced with some kind of cooked avian dish. It’s delicious, if a bit weird looking, the black spices coating the meat giving it the appearance of being charred. Ren would almost prefer eating it with his hands, but he can’t while everyone else is picking away at it with their utensils.

After a deceptively peaceful lull in the conversation, Layn asks, “What exactly do co-commanders do?”

 _‘Not each other,’_ the miserably adolescent part of Ren’s brain just about blurts out. He somehow saves himself from his own insanity though by stuffing another morsel in his mouth. 

Hux finishes his current bite and says, “Our co-commandership exists only so that Lord Ren can utilize the full force of our organization whenever he requires it. For the most part, he usually works alone.”

“You operate better apart, I take it?”

“Something like that,” Ren says.

It sounds odd out loud.

Not for the first time, he wonders if Snoke ever intended for them to operate together in a closer capacity. More as actual co-commanders and less as bitter rivals…

“Do you have to remain on the same ship?” Layn inquires.

“No,” Hux replies. “I command the _Finalizer_ , but Ren is not restricted to a solitary ship. He can come and go as he pleases.”

“Sounds like he has _considerably_ more freedom than you,” Layn quips. “He’s a free agent and you’re naught but a toy soldier. How depressing.”

Hux cuts off another piece of meat and smoothly pops it in his mouth.

Layn smiles into his next bite.

Ren’s beginning to wonder if he’s going about this all wrong, if perhaps he’s actually supposed to take Hux’s side in this conversation. He honestly thought he would just come down to stir up a modest amount of trouble for Hux before fleeing back to the _Finalizer_. He didn’t think the General was already going to be made miserable by someone else.

Maybe Phasma was joking when she thought Hux was running off to get laid tonight.

Ren stomps that thought down before he can get ahead of himself. He has to give no quarter when it comes to Hux. The General’s a slippery fellow and a devil when it comes to politics. He doesn’t need any help. Scoffs at it, usually. Especially when Ren’s the one offering.

Predictably, Hux tries to smooth out Layn’s observation. “We have a few duties that overlap, but, for the most part, Lord Ren goes where he is needed most. I oversee the everyday affairs of my ship.”

“Our ship,” Ren amends  quietly.

Hux fixes his pale gaze on Ren’s face and proceeds to stare a hole through his head.

Layn smirks at Ren like he appreciates the assistance. “Who had it first?” he asks.

“I’ve been in command of the _Finalizer_ since its construction.” Hux cuts in, his voice deceptively low and level. “Ren’s only been with our organization for the past two years.”

“I’m impressed he’s made himself your co-commander in so little time.”

“He’s not an officer.”

Which is the root of most, if not all, of their problems. Hux doesn’t like Ren much because he can’t strangle him into some semblance of order with the many rules and regulations of the First Order. Which, in turn, Ren enjoys breaking for that exact reason. Pissing Hux off is probably the most enjoyment he gets on a day to day basis. Although, if Hux could just get over himself and his pompous rank, Ren thinks they could have an awful lot of fun together.

“Right,” Layn murmurs, squinting at Ren curiously. “ _‘Master of the Knights of Ren’_ …I take it the Knights are another one of Snoke’s hobbies, like the Praetorian Guard?”

“Not a ‘hobby’,” Ren grunts in response. “But yes, we’re a separate entity under the Supreme Leader’s command.”

“The Force-user chapter of his organization?” Layn elaborates, gaze sliding over to Lieutenant Freya. “Isn’t that right, Lieutenant?”

Ren had almost forgotten she was there. She’s horrendously pale for someone of her complexion, slowly cutting through her meat as though she’s afraid of situating her elbow too close to Ren.

Hux flashes her a vague look of admonishment before the four of them continue to eat in silence, only half listening to the conversation going on at the other end of the table, some drawl discussion about chemistry and physics and why the artificial gravity on spaceships is a waste of resources.

Layn’s smile persists all the way through into dessert, where he finally rises from his seat, something like champagne in his hand, and makes a small toast to the construction of _Starkiller_ base.

Ren feels stupid toasting with water, but he’s saved from further embarrassment when a servant delivers him a sweetened cup of caf to accompany the odd red pudding set before him. It tastes good. Good enough that Hux polishes his dessert off before Ren can process the fact that they’re nearing the end of their meal. He’s caught a little unaware when Hux rises to his feet and quietly says, “If you’d please excuse me, I would like to turn in early for the evening.”

“Rest well, General,” Layn says, savoring his pudding.

Ren remembers then why he came to Saxt-5 in the first place, which was to ruin any of Hux’s chances at getting laid, however unlikely those chances seemed. So, as he pretends to suck on a spoonful of pudding, he focuses on the servant standing out in the hall and latches onto her brain as she escorts Hux up to the second floor of the west wing where the guest sleeping quarters are…

While Ren is trapped in his daze, Layn leans forward and says, “Will you also be joining us for the duration of the General’s visit?”

Ren really hadn’t thought about extending his visit for more than a few hours before he jumped into his TIE-fighter, but he doesn’t quite feel like turning back now. “Yes,” he says, smiling thinly, hoping he’s inconveniencing Lord Layn in some small way.

“Excellent,” Layn replies, beaming. He leans back in his chair and waves another servant forward. To this woman, he says, “Please fix up a room for Lord Ren. Show him upstairs once he’s finished.”

Ren’s mood sours a little at Layn’s genuine exuberance, but he supposes he didn’t exactly come here to piss the benefactor off, just Hux. He eats up the last of his pudding, pats Freya on the shoulder as he rises just to see her flinch, and then follows one of the servants up to the west wing. In his mind, he can still picture the door Hux slipped through a few minutes ago—second on the right, just off the stairwell—and is pleased to discover he’s been roomed only two doors down from the General.

“Who’s this?” Ren inquires, gesturing to the room between theirs as he passes.

“Lieutenant Freya,” the servant replies, unlocking the door and handing the key over to Ren. “If you require anything, there’s a switch beside the bed. It will ring someone up for you.”

“What about my helmet?” Ren inquires, its absence still weighing on his mind.

“We’ve already brought it up.”

Ren nods and lets her go.

His room is lavish, of course. It’s done up in blues and gold, with a four-poster bed complete with dark velveteen curtains. There’s a desk to his left, right next to the door to his en suite, and a large chesterfield drawer for his abundant lack of spare clothes. His helmet sits on a small coffee table between two seats on the balcony, its glass doors thrown wide open to permit a cool, evening breeze.

Outside, the sun has already set and the sky is quickly darkening. Ren can’t see the stars for all the light pollution from the city, but the twin moons shine brightly just above the horizon, close enough to the planet that he can make out a few of their craters.

He steps out onto the balcony and tries to focus on Hux. He can’t read the man’s mind outright without alerting the General to his presence, either because Hux has taught himself to pick up on that sort of thing or Snoke did. But Ren can use the Force to identify up Hux’s aura, as he is now. He can tell Hux is still presently alone in his room and that he feels mildly anxious, which is good.

Ren is kind of hoping Hux is anxious because of him.

Wholly intending to stalk the General halfway across the planet if it means raining on his parade, Ren steps out onto the balcony and hops up onto the railing. He’s three stories up, overlooking a beautiful garden that stretches out toward a perfectly round, man-made lake. There’s nothing directly below him to break his fall, but Ren lost his fear of heights years ago when he first realized he could utilize the Force. Therefore, jumping over first onto Freya’s balcony and then quietly onto Hux’s is a simple feat.

Once he reaches his destination, he leans against the outside wall beside a large potted tree, peering through the leaves into Hux’s room. Much to his surprise, Hux doesn’t look as though he has any intention of leaving the premises tonight. He’s wearing his long black robe, the one that clings to his figure in a very flattering way, and pacing the length of his room slowly as he worries at a fingernail between his teeth.

Ren stares at him hard and long, resting his head against the cool white stone beside him. He feels kind of like a fool. Not for chasing Hux down to spoil his fun, but because he’s having a hard time coming to terms with _why_ he’s doing it. Which is, if he’s being honest, mostly to do his rather adolescent crush.

Meeting Hux for the first time was a whiplash experience. When Snoke told him that a General of the First Order was going to be the third and final member of their little ‘High Command’ Ren was expecting some remnant of the old Empire to hobble out of the lift and into the holochamber room, hard of hearing and cowardly, someone easy enough for Snoke to manipulate. Instead, Armitage Hux marched boldly into his life, his hair like fire, his skin as pale and smooth as stone. He was trim and perfectly poised and walked briskly toward Snoke’s dais with his chin tilted up in dignity.

Hux wasn’t cowardly or hard of hearing, and he’d be damned if anyone thought he’d be easy to manipulate.

Ren was just twenty-two at the time and still relishing every newfound freedom he could wrestle from Luke’s overbearing hands. As such, he took one look at Hux and immediately conjured up at least half a dozen ways he would love to go about putting an end to his vow of celibacy between the General’s delightfully long legs.

However, two things quickly nipped that train of thought in the bud. The first was the vicious pinch at the back of his brain as Snoke flicked his metaphysical finger at him in an unspoken warning not to touch. The second was the sharp dressing-down Hux immediately launched into over Ren’s almost-crash landing in the loading bay roughly an hour earlier.

Since then, Ren hasn’t necessarily stopped fantasizing about Hux, but the General’s attitude is still incredibly off-putting. Any effort on Ren’s part to socialize with the other man typically turns into an impromptu review of the most recent maintenance costs for Ren’s destructive tendencies—and that _there_ is the real crux of their relationship problems:

Hux just doesn’t know how to communicate beyond his work.

Despite his sulk, Ren is shaken from his reverie when Hux pivots sharply in his pacing and inadvertently flashes a tantalizing long and pale leg in Ren’s general direction. In fact, that brief glimpse derails Ren’s train of thought so smoothly, he almost doesn’t register the soft knock on the door until Hux’s redirected himself to let his visitor in.

Ren’s brain reboots itself, though, when he realizes said visitor is none other than Lord Layn.

The other man is smiling in a very peculiar way, one which Ren doesn’t wholly understand until Layn produces a long box topped with a red bow from behind his back. Hux ushers him inside and closes the door before he cautiously takes the box from his host, one of his elegant copper eyebrows arched in curiosity.

Despite himself, Ren’s curiosity is as equally piqued. He watches as Hux slowly ( _agonizingly_ so) pulls the bow apart and deposits the ribbon on the drawer beside the door before lifting off the lid. Folding back a piece of tissue paper, Hux then lifts one of the two metal gauntlets tucked away inside for inspection. After a moment, his eyes widen in surprise. “Is this—?”

“The monomolecular wrists blades you designed?” Layn supplies, looking horribly pleased with himself. “Of course. I know you didn’t have the resources to make them yourself, so I thought I would take the initiative.”

Ren already knew Hux was an engineer before he decided to climb the ranks, but Ren didn’t think the man was currently engaged in any other projects beyond _Starkiller’s_ construction. He honestly thought the General didn’t care for much of anything technical beyond his work as an officer.

“They’re beautiful,” Hux breathes, depositing the box beside the ribbon so he can snap one of the gauntlets onto his right wrist. Smiling faintly, he says, “Thank you.”

Layn returns the smile with the soft curve of his own lips. “Happy thirtieth,” he replies.

Ren blinks in surprise.

Then his brain screeches to a complete halt when Layn reaches over to cup Hux’s chin and turns the General’s face up for a too-deep kiss.

In his defence, it’s a lot to take in at once. Before this moment, Ren had no idea that it was Hux’s birthday, or that the man was still a practicing engineer, _or_ that the General _genuinely_ had a lover—one who’s hands were now slipping under the General’s robe as Layn tugged him eagerly toward the bed. Ren watches with mounting horror as they topple together onto the mattress before he finally manages to tear his eyes away, scrambling back over onto his balcony in such haste that he nearly trips over Freya’s railing and plummets to his death. Heart pounding, he dives into his quarters and slams the balcony doors shut hard enough behind himself that the glass rattles dangerously in its frame.

For a second, Ren considers smashing the glass panels just for the hell of it—that is, after all, his go-to coping strategy when he’s angry or afraid—but the terrible lurch in his heart stays his hand. Instead, he takes a few heaving breaths and retreats to the settee in the corner, where he collapses with all the drama of a lovesick hero.

Tomorrow, he knows, he will have to do something about this _Layn_.

~***~

 

~***~

One of the upsides of being an uninvited guest to a planet-side visit is the ability to successfully slip out of any pre-planned itineraries.

So, instead of suffering through Hux’s multiple meetings with Layn’s engineers, Ren spends the morning in meditation. He shuts the blinds against the daylight, settles into the armchair in the corner, and closes his eyes. Then he reaches deep within himself for his anger, that gaping chasm of infinite possibilities, and allows its tendrils to weave their way through his heart and mind.

All at once, he feels all-powerful and all-knowing, his proverbial thumb now pressed firmly against the vibrating thread of eternity, picking out individual rhythms, including that of General Armitage Hux. His has always been a steady tempo, the reliable pounding of a parade march, like a hundred thousand troopers mobilizing. Begrudgingly, Ren finds a modicum of peace in its faithful beat.

He doesn’t know enough of anyone else on the planet to pick out their unique signature. Besides Freya. Hers is a weak and thready pulse, sometimes frantic and quick, other times slow and sluggish. He tries to ignore her as best he can as he narrows his focus back to Hux.

Hux…Oh, Hux. Clearly, Ren didn’t know the man half as well as he thought he did. Here, he always assumed Hux was a prude, that the General wouldn’t be able to handle the finer intimacies of a relationship, whether it be sexual or otherwise. He’s a bit of a prick, honestly, so either Layn didn’t care about his partner’s personality so much as their ability to please him in the bedroom or there was more to his relationship with Hux than what meets the eye.

Ren is divided on which is the more likely answer. He already knows Hux is willing to kill for power. Spreading his legs for the FO’s greatest economical ally isn’t too much of a stretch. Then again, eight years…eight years is an _awfully_ long time to know someone without really getting to _know_ them, which Layn has already demonstrated. The industrialist gave Hux a very personal gift, after all. For his birthday.

Which Hux apparently always celebrates on Saxt-5.

Actually…Ren doesn’t know if that’s true. He’ll have to pour over the _Finalizer’s_ older logs to determine if Hux made this trip the same time every year. Unfortunately, he feels very much as though this is probably the case.

Ren spends the better part of the day stewing over his newfound knowledge and what it means personally for his own relationship with Hux, which isn’t much (and which is actually quite a lot). It isn’t until the early evening that a soft knock at his bedroom door rouses him from his trance. Irritably, he vocalizes his permission for entry.

One of the servants ducks his head into the room, a bundle of richly coloured robes folded neatly together in his arms. Smiling, he says, “I’m glad you’re still here, sir. Rosaline knocked earlier to collect you for brunch, but there was no answer.”

Someone probably tried to rouse him for an earlier meal, but Ren can sustain himself on very little and tends to blank out on everything around him when he’s in a really good trance. Even now, he doesn’t feel particularly hungry. More queasy than anything else.

“Has my presence been _requested_?” Ren grumbles, rising from the armchair. Hux always did enjoy sending an underling to impose on some imaginary schedule on his co-commander.

“His lordship would like to extend an invitation to you for tonight’s dinner,” the man explains, stepping farther into the room. He begins arranging the robes on Ren’s bed. “He and your colleagues will be dining at _Rogafin_ , which will necessitate a change of clothes.”

Ren glances down at his own black tunic and frowns. Despite what Hux might think, he irons and cleans his clothes regularly enough to be presentable. “What’s wrong with this?” he asks, mildly offended.

Sensing his ire, the servant swallows and quickly says, “Nothing, sir! Unfortunately, no one outside the royal family is permitted to wear black.”

Ah, well…that would explain why Hux and his team ditched their uniforms the other day. Hux loved wearing black almost as much as he did. What better way to express his soul-sucking nature?

Glancing over the assortment of clothes laid out before him, Ren very nearly retches. Yellow, purple, _orange_ —stars, he wouldn’t be caught _dead_ in any of these. Despite outward appearance, he _did_ have a halfway decent sense of style. Both his mother and grandmother were public figures, after all, and he knows the former of the two would turn in her grave if he allowed himself to settle for any one of these godawful getups.

“Grey,” Ren blurts out, unable to find the words to describe his disgust. “Is it unlawful to wear _grey_?”

The servant gives him a blank look. Then he blinks and says, “Well…I suppose not. Do these colours offend you, sir? The General put this selection together for you himself.”

Well, that certainly explained everything. None of these robes looked as fashionable as what he’d seen the locals wearing. Hux was obviously trying to tell him to skip out on the dinner tonight.

Fat chance _that_ was going to happen.

“The cut of the robes is fine,” Ren replies. “Just get me something grey. And quickly. I don’t want to miss our outing.”

Seemingly pleased with Ren’s feedback, the servant collects the robes and scurries out of the room. While Ren waits for him to return, he ducks into the small en suite and hops in the shower, scrubbing himself down before giving himself a quick shave with the blade left by the sink. He knows he’s not the most handsome fellow to grace this side of the galaxy, but he cleans up pretty well. At least in his humble opinion.

When he exits the en suite, he finds dark grey leggings and a lighter grey tunic laid out on the bed, complete with some hybrid cape/vest with a sash. He slips into the suit and then flags down a servant in the hall to escort him to the restaurant.

Not surprisingly, his colleagues have already left without him. Thankfully, though, _Rogafin_ isn’t too far from Layn’s tower. A servant chaperones him down the street to the establishment, which has apparently attracted quite the crowd tonight. Ren has to nudge people aside with the Force just to get to the front door, where the servant then has to flash an insignia ring at the maître d’ to prove he’s there on Layn’s behalf.

Ren hates to be ferried around like some kind of shipment (he got enough of that sort of treatment from his parents), but he allows himself to be handed off to a waiter, who then leads him silently through the dimly lit entrance and up a winding set of stairs to a small balcony. Here he finds his companions milling about three round tables laden with tall, white candles and golden dishes heaped with hors d’oeuvres. As Ren steps out onto the balcony, he realizes it overlooks a much larger floor dotted with similar tables, all surrounding a somewhat elevated platform. This empty platform is itself surrounded by a deep, seemingly bottomless pit. Ren supposes this must be where the entertainment for the evening will be situated.

While the engineers are swarming the tables, busy picking at the appetizers, Hux and their host have retreated to the balcony railing, where they are both staring out over the crowd below. Both are adorned in dark green robes with a similar gold, leafy pattern along the hem, as if one of them was trying to dress to match the other. Ren doesn’t have much time to mull over that painful thought—or the fact that Layn’s hand is settled comfortably against Hux’s lower back—before his lordship glances over his shoulder and finally spots Ren.

“You came!” Layn exclaims, his mouth splitting into a disgustingly warm and inviting smile as he turns to great his guest. “I was wondering what you’d gotten up to today.”

“Nothing approaching property damage, I hope,” Hux mumbles, turning as well. His eyes rake over Ren’s hulking form, taking in his solemn, grey attire, though he doesn’t appear displeased with his co-commander’s obvious efforts to spoil his fun. In fact, he looks faintly pleased.

Ren wonders if this is a trap.

Layn, who seems to think this is a joke, laughs. “I was told you spent the day holed up in your quarters. If you’d like a more open space to work in, the public gardens behind my tower are quite lovely this time of year.”

“Meditation is best done in private,” Ren replies—side-stepping just in time to avoid a long train of waiters bustling impatiently out onto the balcony, clean plates and silverware in hand. They immediately begin reorganizing the hors d’oeuvres onto one table so that they can fix up the other two for the main course.

While the wait staff works, Ren hears a roar of applause from the floor below. All heads turn simultaneously toward the raised platform and the two men now standing under a blinding spotlight. They are both garbed in nothing more than a pair of skin-tight shorts, their skin gleaming with sweat, graciously bowing to at other before taking up their respective stances. It’s then that Ren realizes that this is a fighting arena.

A bell rings off stage and the man to the right immediately lunges at his partner. All at once, they’re grappling on the floor, arms and legs twisting in an attempt to ensnare one another. The man pinned closest to the ground is now repeatedly elbowing his opponent in the ribs. Knocking the wind out of his opponent, he then lurches upward viciously to reverse their positions.

Another cheer goes up from the crowd. Layn laughs again. “It’s the _Talang_ season. The reigning champion retired last year and now there’s all this new blood vying for the title.”

Ren likes a good fight just about as much as the next guy, but he prefers to be at the centre of the action. In fact, he recognizes most of the moves both men are utilizing. It’s nothing fancy. He can already tell that the smaller of the two fighters is going to win this match.

“I used to compete,” Layn adds almost wistfully, still watching the spectacle.

Hux glances aside at the man, giving him curious look. “Please don’t tell me you miss it. You almost broke your neck.”

“ _Almost_ ,” Layn emphasizes, smiling.

“I’m glad you quit,” Hux mutters, turning sharply toward the tables. The wait staff have long since brought out the main course, which is some large, cooked bird surrounded by spiced tubers and vegetables. The meal smells heavenly. “You always took such unnecessary risks.”

Ren usually hates it when Hux lectures him on proper risk-assessment, and therefore feels mildly irritated on Layn’s behalf. Layn, on the other hand, looks oddly touched as he settles into the seat on Hux’s right. “I still practice, you know. You could swing by the gym and watch me tomorrow night if you’d like. Just like the good old times.”

“And waste my last evening indoors?” Hux snorts, “I’ll pass.”

“Another time, perhaps?” Layn quietly adds, eyes glued to Hux.

Ren watches this curious exchange as he takes the seat directly across from Hux, successfully bumping Freya out of the way and forcing her to take the seat on his left. He’s only vaguely aware of her skittish presence as Layn and Hux share a moment of silence, one loaded with secrets, eyes locked. It lasts only briefly before they both turn toward their meal.

Ren has no problem admitting to himself that he’s about as nosy as they come. He picks up the cup of whatever drink was set down beside his plate and stares at Layn, trying to take the plunge into the darkest recesses of the other man’s mind.

What he finds is nothing.

And by ‘nothing’, he means that he can’t make any connection whatsoever with the other man via the Force. In fact, Ren’s so surprised by Layn’s seemingly flawless mental block, he chokes on his drink, wine stinging the back of his throat and his nasal cavity as he very nearly projects it back out his nose.

All eyes immediately turn on him. Layn, looking somewhat apologetic, waves over a waitress. “Forgive me, Lord Ren. Your abstinence slipped my mind.”

Hux, on the other hand, is staring at Ren as though he wishes his co-commander would melt into the floor. Thankfully, though, he soon shifts his cold stare to Freya—who, Ren now realizes, is trying to stifle an incredible fit of giggles into her own cup of wine.

Embarrassed, Ren’s almost tempted to excuse himself from the meal. Unfortunately, Hux would only interpret that as a retreat, and Ren would rather _die_ than do any such thing in front of his co-commander. So, he bitterly accepts the napkin handed to him and wipes down the front of his only moderately stained shirt, then sulks in relative silence for the remainder of the meal as everyone else makes small talk around him.

One way or another, he’s going to find a way to make the General miserable.

~***~

Because he’s a glutton for punishment, Ren decides the one way he can do that is by spying on Hux again.

He waits twenty or so minutes after they’ve all retired for the evening, pacing his room indecisively before he comes to the conclusion that he _needs_ to intervene somehow tonight. He’s not all too enthused about watching yet another prelude to sex between Hux and their overly gracious host, but he figures this might be one of the last few opportunities he’ll get for spoiling Hux’s vacation. Maybe he’ll move the rug under Layn’s feet, trip him up, embarrass the hell out him to prevent copulation— _whatever_. Just as long as they don’t get to have their fun, he’ll be fine.

Really. He’ll be fine.

Mind made up, Ren pokes his head outside to see if Hux is loitering anywhere on his balcony. It’s vacant, so Ren assumes the coast is clear. Then he steps outside, situates himself a few paces back from the railing to give himself a good distance, and subsequently vaults on over to Freya’s balcony.

He 100% intends to keep his momentum going and leap directly onto Hux’s balcony next—except _Freya_ , stars-know-why, decides then that she needs a bit of fresh air.

Ren only just avoids completely bowling her over like a sparring droid by the grace of his training, but he still ends up bumping into her pretty hard. She nearly falls over, scrambling frantically to keep the bath towel wrapped around her torso as Ren urgently drags her back into her room, accidentally slamming her balcony doors shut behind him in his haste to remove this unexpected variable from the equation.

“Lord Ren!” Freya squeaks, adjusting her spectacles, which are fogging over from the ungodly amount of humidity in her room. If he had to guess, Ren would say she was probably taking advantage of the hot water supply, considering she’ll get no such luxury back on the _Finalizer_. “Can—can I help you, sir?”

“Just… _be_ _quiet_ ,” he growls, squeezing his eyes shut in frustration, hoping against all hope Hux didn’t hear anything.

But, of course, _he_ _did_ , as is evident by the sudden sharp knock on Freya’s door, followed by a muffled, _“Are you alright in there, Lieutenant?”_

Ren’s eyes snap open immediately. He barely registers the horrified look on Freya’s face as he hisses, “I’m not here!” and dives onto the ground beside her bed, well out of view of the doorway.

Frantically, Freya grabs some silvery material off the back of her chaise lounge and slips it over her shoulders as she runs to the door. “Everything’s fine, sir!” she replies. “I almost slipped, that’s all!”

_“On the balcony?”_

_Damnit_ …if Hux thought he saw Ren, the best course of action would be to lie low for a few minutes, at least until Layn arrived.

There’s the sound of the door creaking open before Freya says, “It’s humid in here, sir. My fault entirely.”

Ren can hear Hux’s sigh of long-suffering all the way from over here. “Stability— _poise_ , Freya. You need to practice. You can’t be tripping all over the place as a Captain.”

“No, sir,” she agrees, a little calmer this time, almost disappointed. “Of course not, sir…”

“Good night, then.”

“Good night, sir,” she returns, followed by the soft click of the door falling shut again.

Ren releases the breath he didn’t realize he was holding, still lying on his stomach, wondering how long he’ll have to wait before Layn calls on Hux tonight. Shortly, Freya reappears on his side of the bed, wrapped up in a long, elegant, silver robe, her bath towel now hanging over her arm.

And she looks peeved.

“ _That_ ,” Ren says, pointing at her as he scrambles back to his feet. “ _That_ is the look you need to practice.”

“I would like to sleep now, sir,” she replies, somewhat tersely, gesturing him vaguely toward the door.

“Fair enough—but you understand what I’m saying, don’t you?” He extends his hand ever so slowly and gently pokes her in the cheek before lowering it again. Fortunately, instead of recoiling in fear, she continues scowling at him. “The real reason the General hasn’t signed the paperwork for your promotion yet is because you’re so incredibly meek.”

“Am not,” she protests, albeit weakly. She’s not fooling anyone, herself included.

“I’ve watched you on the bridge before. When your subordinates don’t deliver on their work, you accept that as fact and excuse them. You need to grow a spine and start calling them to task for their mistakes.”

Her scowl softens into something a little gloomier. Pushing her glasses up her nose, she sighs and says, “I know. I’m just so unused to screaming at people…I was an engineer before I was a solider.”

“So was Hux, but that hardly stops him from bitching out his subordinates when they underperform.”

“Perhaps,” she mumbles, shrugging. Then she narrows her eyes curiously and says, “What were you doing out on the balcony?”

“Nothing,” he says, more out of reflex than anything else. “In fact, I should probably get going.”

And he does just that, pivoting sharply toward the balcony doors, prepared to retreat to his own room until things cool down again—but he’s stopped by the hand suddenly hooked on his right elbow.

When he turns back around to face Freya, she says, “Look, I can pretty much guess by now you’re spying on the General. I would just like to know why.”

Ren’s initial response is to feel mildly embarrassed by the apparent transparency of his actions. But instead of brushing her off and telling her to mind her own business, he stands there and stares at her as it dawns on him that she went on this same trip with Hux last year and therefore currently knows a great deal more about Layn than he does.

“If you know what I’m up to,” Ren replies, nodding his head toward the wall between her room and the General’s, “then I’m betting anything you know what _he’s_ been up to.”

Freya purses her lips in a funny sort of way, like she’s physically restraining them from spilling any secrets.

 _Oh_ , she’s got to know something.

And it’s probably something _good_.

“Tell me,” he urges her, wracking his brain for some kind of incentive. “Tell me, and I’ll put in a good word for you with the General.”

“Please don’t,” she blurts out. Then she winces, realizing she’s shown her hand. “No offense, sir. It’s just…that would probably do my reputation more harm than good.”

Ren smiles slowly, because, yeah, nothing would probably disqualify a candidate faster in Hux’s eyes than having his co-commander’s stamp of approval. “Well then, if you _don’t_ tell me, I’ll give you the most glowing review in the history of the First Order.”

There’s a moment of hesitancy on her part before she sighs and waves half heartedly toward her little lounge area. “Where to begin…” she mumbles, retreating to her chaise lounge.

Excited, Ren settles into the armchair adjacent to her. Where to begin, indeed. “Do you know how the General and Jorde Layn first met? Layn said they’ve known each other for eight years. Was he already working for the First Order in another capacity prior to the construction of _Starkiller_ base?”

“ _Stars_ no,” she laughs, somewhat drily, as if there’s a _really_ good story behind it all. “The Emperor had little interest in letting us use the planet’s technology for _Starkiller’s_ construction prior to the Supreme Leader’s own negotiations with Jafe. Even after he was convinced, the Emperor wouldn’t personally vouch for Layn’s involvement. He pretty much told us we had to negotiate with Layn ourselves if we wanted his help so badly.”

Ren blinks in surprise. “Unless I’m mistaken, the Emperor _enjoys_ bossing his people around. Why not simply command Layn to cooperate?”

“They’re related somehow,” she replies, shrugging. “Second cousins, I think? Regardless, Layn’s brilliant—and I mean _brilliant_. As long as he continues to develop whatever technology the Emperor wants, he’s free to do as he pleases.”

Good grief. No wonder the man was so insufferably cheery all the time.

Layn’s probably the second most powerful person on the planet.

“And so Hux was sent to negotiate with him?” Ren inquires. Hux would’ve only been twenty-two back then. And a Captain, if Hux’s files were to be believed. Ren’s surprised the First Order would’ve trusted him at so young an age to successfully negotiate such a hefty deal. “Why, because he helped design the base?”

“Yes,” she replies, although she’s squinting in such a way that suggests this probably isn’t the whole truth.

Ren waits a moment for her to elaborate. When she doesn’t, clearly uncomfortable with what follows next, Ren says, “You _do_ realize I could just pluck this information from your mind, don’t you?”

“Yes,” she squeaks again, then quickly clears her throat, remembering who she’s dealing with here. “I mean, General Brendol Hux, his father, was actually the one who was tasked with figuring out how to bring Layn into the fold. He’s the one who decided to send his son to serve as the first wave of negotiators.”

Ren snorts out a small laugh. “Nepotism then. I see what you mean.”

“You really don’t,” Freya interjects softly. “Brendol Hux spared no quarter in trying to make his son’s life difficult. This was an exercise in humiliation more than anything.”

Frowning in confusion, Ren asks, “How so?”

“Because it’s always been a well known fact that Layn has an affinity for redheads.”

It takes Ren a second to process this information. But once he gets it, he _really_ gets it.

Sensing that the pieces of the puzzle have finally fallen into place, Freya continues. “That’s right. It was always implicitly understood that if Captain Armitage Hux failed to convince Layn to work with us, he’d didn’t do _everything_ in his power to secure Layn’s loyalties, which would be a permanent mark against him on his record. If, on the other hand, he succeeded, anyone who ever hated him would gleefully assume he got the job done the ‘old fashioned’ way.”

And Hux had a lot of people who hated him. Granted, he’d climbed so far up the ranks, none of those people could really touch him now, but Ren’s caught more than a few stray thoughts aboard the _Finalizer_ concerning how many people the General has likely either killed or slept with to get to where he is today.

“Well…he succeeded,” Ren replies, stomping down the silver of sympathy blossoming in his chest for his co-commander. “But, you know…did he actually _do_ it?”

Freya shrugs again. “I only know what I heard through the grapevine back then. Apparently, Layn caught wind of what Brendol was up to and was mildly insulted by his underhanded tactics. Fortunately, Armitage Hux got the last laugh, because he and Layn ended up getting along just famously, resulting in a swift agreement between Layn and the First Order. Hux had such cool confidence throughout the whole process no rumors ever really circulated about him. Ever since then, he’s returned every year to deal with Layn directly.”

That actually sounded very much like Hux. He usually just ignored rumors, although he certainly enjoyed the ones concerning his more cutthroat endeavours.

Hux has always known how to manage the political playing field.

“How long have they been lovers?” Ren asks, though there’s a part of him that doesn’t really want to know.

“I’m assuming from day one?” Freya supplies, uncertain. “The older members of our engineering team would know for certain, but the two of them have always been close.”

“Are you sure about that?” he mutters, hoping it isn’t true. He’s feeling so stupidly jealous all over again, and he can’t help it. “The General’s been pretty snappish with Layn on this trip, at least so far as I can tell. Would he really be so tense if he genuinely enjoyed Layn’s company?”

Freya waves a hand dismissively, as if that’s really no big deal. “I’m pretty sure it’s just nerves.”

Ren allows himself a small smile. He hopes this means his presence on Saxt-5 has successfully rattled the General. “Nerves about what?”

“Well, our engineers love to gossip with Layn’s team, and supposedly there’s a rumor circulating now that Layn is planning to propose to him.”

Something comes to a screeching halt at the back of Ren’s brain.

Hux and…marriage…just—just _don’t_ belong together. Not in the same sentence, and sure as hell _not_ in the same universe. Hux is already married. To his job. He doesn’t have time for love or romance. In fact, his whole fling with Layn is a farce, so far as Ren is concerned.

Ren stands up suddenly enough that he almost overturns his chair. “Thank you,” he says abruptly, although for what, he doesn’t know.

Neither does Freya, who watches him with wide-eyed wonder as he retreats to her balcony. Snapping back to attention at the last moment, she says, “You can use the door, sir.”

He hears her but his brain is still lagging behind, so he ignores her cry of surprise, steps outside, and vaults over the railing back onto his own balcony, where he then stomps quietly back into his quarters.

This has to be some sort of joke.

…

It has to be.

~***~

~***~

Ren has never been great at the planning stage of his missions.

It’s something Luke used to needle him about, so he’s always been at sorts over whether he should ignore the old man’s feedback just to spite the fool or if he should fix this handicap before he regrets it. Ironically, his half-assery at stringing together a plan is usually something that pisses Hux off to no end, so he hasn’t had the greatest incentive as of late to change his ways. However, just as _equally_ ironic is the fact that Hux, by no means of his own, has now successfully forced Ren into the planning stage of this mission. Everything’s finally coming full circle, so it would seem.

Unfortunately, committing to improving on a skill doesn’t guarantee that it will improve _quickly_. Likewise, even the greatest strategist would balk at the task set before them if they were in his shoes, simply because Ren doesn’t know what exactly he’s planning _for_.

Coming to Saxt-5 had been all about exercising his cruelty on Hux. That much is clear. However, he’s been floundering. It hurts to admit to that, but he knows Layn is important to Snoke because of what he can do for the First Order, and therefore Ren can’t hurt the other man directly to get a jab in at Hux—although why he wants to hurt Layn is now beyond him. Ren should be glad someone wants to take Hux off his hands…

But he’s not.

And that’s the most confusing part of it all. Maybe it’s because he still needs to prove to Hux that he’s the better man before the General rides off into the sunset with his lover. All he knows is that he has one night left to do… _something_ —something Hux won’t see coming, but which Hux also can’t rant to Snoke about, because if Layn suffers a loss of life or limb before this trip is through, Ren knows his master will never let him hear the end of it…

Then it hits him. And when it does, it brings an honest smile to his face, because the only thing Hux _wouldn’t_ see coming is the sort of thing he probably wished Ren had started doing years ago.

Simply put, Ren is going to ask for a briefing on the many meetings between Layn’s and the First Order’s engineering staff. After their last dinner, he’ll accompany Hux up to his room and demand a breakdown of everything that’s happened behind closed doors on the trip. Hux might sputter in indignation or gripe, but Ren will soldier on until the wee hours of the morning if it means keeping Hux from his lover.

It sounds petty, honestly, but it’ll get the job done.

With this is mind, Ren starts the following morning off on a good note. He ducks his head into the hall to wave over one of the servants, whom he instructs to collect him for whatever midday lunch is planned for their group. Then he spends the next few hours in quiet meditation, his mind a million lightyears away on another plane of existence.

He reaches a remarkable state of calm by the time there’s a knock on the door. He rises from his seat in the corner, slips on his grey tunic, and then follows the same servant out to lunch, which is being hosted beside the lake just behind Layn’s tower.

Once again, everyone is already there. Given the less formal setting in comparison to the restaurant last night, most people are huddled together on white picnic blankets, datapads in hand, still poring over their work. Freya catches sight of him first; she doesn’t flinch or cower away this time. Instead, she glances over at the rocky beach before returning to her work, speaking quietly with the older gentleman seated beside her.

Following her line of regard, Ren spots the familiar fiery hair and long, lean form of his co-commander standing beside the water, his back turned to the group. Hux is wearing a simple dark blue tunic and grey leggings, hair lightly tousled by the wind; Ren can’t remember a time when he’s seen the General without his hair slicked back and rigid.

He pulls up beside Hux quietly and stares out across the water for a moment, giving the other man a chance to register his presence. Predictably, Hux takes one look at him and says, “What are you doing here?”, albeit without the usual condescending tone of voice.

Ren takes a slow, deep breath. “It’s quite beautiful here. I just thought I would take the opportunity to enjoy the view while I still could.”

Hux says nothing.

Curious, Ren finally turns his head toward his co-commander. Hux somehow looks paler out in the sunshine, gaze cast out over the lake but turned somewhat downward, sad.

Ren feels the curl of some unrecognizable emotion in the pit of his stomach. Suddenly uncomfortable, he shifts his weight from one foot to the other and asks, “Do you like it here?”

Hux glances over at him now. He does his usual quick analysis, gaze flickering from Ren’s attire to his mouth and then to his eyes, before he replies, tone flat, “Like you said, it’s beautiful.”

It takes Ren a long moment to figure out where to take their stilted conversation next, but by then Hux has turned back to the group and is slowly making his way over to the picnic blankets upon which Layn has settled down next to an FO engineer, chatting away amiably with the older woman. Their host flashes a small smile at Ren before his eyes land on Hux. Then his face really lights up.

That unrecognizable emotion twists into something painful in his gut. Ren presses his hand against his stomach, wondering what has gotten into him, when a soft voice suddenly says, “ _Quashi_ , sir?”

For once in his life, Ren is well and truly startled. He flinches away from the mysterious figure at his side—who only turns out to be Freya. Thankfully, she doesn’t look smug for having caught him unaware. Instead, she arches a disappointed eyebrow at Ren—an expression he’s positive she picked up from Hux—and offers him one of the two glasses in her hand. “It’s a non-alcoholic juice,” she says, “just in case you were wondering…”

Ren takes the proffered drink, more on impulse than anything else. “Are you sure your reputation can survive the sight of us conversing, Lieutenant?”

“The General’s been distracted as of late, so I doubt he’ll notice.”

True enough, Hux is now seated on the blanket, frowning gently, listening attentively to whatever it is Layn is trying to tell him. Back on the _Finalizer_ , he’s usually on high alert when he knows Ren is nearby. Now, he’s barely making any effort to recognize Ren’s presence.

That _thing_ twists again. Ren stares down into his drink in the hope of distracting himself. It doesn’t work. “Lieutenant, how much stock do you put in that… _rumor_ you shared with me the other night?”

Freya takes a moment to sip her own drink before she says, “Well…on Saxt-5, it’s customary to give someone a ring to represent your intention to marry them. Lord Layn’s already had one made, apparently, which he designed himself. He’s asked the General to come back in another standard month for a visit unrelated to our current work, so we’re all betting that’s when he’s going to pop the question.”

Ren has mixed feelings about her answer. On the downside, it sounds as though this rumor isn’t so much a rumor as it is truth. On the upside, the fact that any such proposal is _not_ going to happen tonight is a bit of a reprieve, although Ren can’t describe why. Overall, he’s still uncomfortable with the whole situation.

He finally takes a sip of his drink. It’s light and fruity; he doesn’t much care for it. “The General must be pleased.”

Freya snorts into her cup. “Yeah— _no_.”

That gives Ren pause. He breathes in the sickly sweet aroma of the _quashi_ before he lowers his cup. “I thought you said he was excited?”

She blinks at him in confusion. “No. You asked me why he was acting strangely, and I said it was likely because of his ‘nerves’. That’s not to say he was excited by the rumor. Quite the opposite, actually.”

This news is so unexpected, Ren doesn’t know how to process it beyond the sudden release of tension from the ever-tightening knot in his gut. “Why is he upset? I thought he and Layn got along just famously?”

Even if Hux did look somewhat strained, nothing about his behavior indicated he was uncomfortable with Layn. He accepted the other man’s signs of affections without drawing himself away. Even now, they were huddled quite close together, sampling meats and cheeses from the same platter. They were wholly distracted with one another, so far as Ren could tell.

“They do,” Freya replies, “but marriage would necessitate a change in residence, so to speak, and Layn has no intention of leaving Saxt-5.”

…

Ah.

Now he gets it.

Hux’s career is everything to him. Even now, as a General of the First Order, he still isn’t at the very peak of the hierarchy, which is precisely where he wants to be. There’s simply nothing anyone can do or say to convince him to retire yet, not when he’s so close to finally achieving his goal and still too young to quit the proverbial game.

On the other hand, even Ren now realizes how important Layn is as a civilian contractor to the First Order. If Layn’s continued work with the FO is contingent on his marriage to Hux, the General can’t afford to say no, at least if he doesn’t want to suffer the repercussions of not putting his own wants and needs after those of his organization.

 _However_ …the way Freya described their first meeting, Layn doesn’t seem to be a fan of underhanded tactics. He might not hold it against Hux for refusing his offer. But then, what if Hux is too emotionally invested in the relationship to back out of it? Perhaps _that_ is the true source of his turmoil.

Not for the first time, Ren’s relieved to be a solitary agent in the universe. Love is such a messy affliction, one he can certainly do without.

“Thank you for explaining the situation to me,” Ren murmurs, nodding in gratitude at the Lieutenant before handing his cup over to a passing waiter.

“Will you be joining us for dinner?” she asks, sounding mildly concerned.

“I will,” he confirms, if for no other reason than this will be his last opportunity to watch Hux and gauge how far down the rabbit hole his co-commander has fallen in this whole affair.

Ren doesn’t linger much longer than that. He grabs a few meat rolls and cheese cubes to sate his appetite but mostly keeps to the periphery of the group as the others finish up their meal. Layn smiles and nods at Ren on his way back to the tower, so disgustingly happy it makes Ren _sick_. Why should _he_ be so happy on this despot of a planet?

Ren returns to his room for a bit of peace and quiet, but he meditates very little. He feels agitated in a new way, one in which he can hardly put to words. Dinner doesn’t come soon enough.

When it does come, he begrudgingly swaps his grey tunic for the dark green robes a servant offers him before the feast. He also showers and shaves, cleaning himself up as best he can before he’s lead down to the dining hall. Much to his surprise, only about half of their group are there at the moment, which means  he’s somehow managed to show up early for a change.

Hux, of course, is already there. While his fellow engineers are lounging out on the balcony couches, fruity drinks in hand, the General has taken up his familiar seat at the table, his empty plate pushed aside to accommodate a steaming mug of what Ren highly suspects is tea. Hux is wearing the same green tunic from the first night, and his hair is slicked back with pomade. He looks more put together than he was earlier today, though no less somber.

Inevitably, Hux gives Ren a quick once-over as he drops into the chair beside him. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you wear a colour before,” the General remarks.

“I don’t care much for fashion,” Ren mumbles, not sure how to steer this conversation to best suit his needs. He’ll just have to settle on small talk for now. Play it by ear. “…Why _is_ it illegal to wear black on Saxt-5?”

There’s a small quirk at the corner of Hux’s lips. “Most of Jafe’s laws don’t make much sense. However, I believe this one stems from his belief that all would-be assassins wear black to blend in with the shadows. It’s only recently that he began to allow people to wear dark colours again. He used to have tighter regulations concerning what could or could not be worn in public.” Hux raises his mug to his lips. “Consider yourself fortunate you weren’t here for the neon years,” he murmurs before taking a sip.

Ren probably would’ve turned his TIE right around at the docking station if only neon colours were permitted, although he so desperately wishes someone had a picture of Hux around that time.

After Hux has had a moment to savour his tea, he lowers his cup and says, “You’ve been remarkably mild-mannered this trip, Lord Ren. Is there something on your mind?”

Honestly, Ren’s been a mess of emotions since day one, but to all outside appearances he can see how Hux would be mistaken. Ren spends most of his time cooped up in his chambers, and he hasn’t broken anything on the planet yet. He realizes that must be a personal record.

Naturally, Hux doesn’t really need to know what kind of inner turmoil he’s been battling recently, so he shrugs and says, “I’m trying a new meditation technique. A change of scenery, from time to time, helps quiet the mind.”

“I think it’s working wonders for you.”

Ren doesn’t know if that’s supposed to be a jab, but it doesn’t sound derisive. He stumbles somewhat over a confused, “Thank you?”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Hux replies, smirking. “I warned you that if you tagged along, I would put you to work.” He takes another a small sip of his tea, pausing to enjoy its likely bitter flavor. “Our team has made remarkable progress on planning the next stage of _Starkiller’s_ construction, and I would like to share the details with you either sometime tonight or tomorrow. Whatever works best for your schedule.”

Ren is almost completely floored by the fact that Hux has taken his very own plan and turned it on it’s head.

He wonders if Hux somehow _knows_ …

But if he does, would it matter? If Hux is willingly sacrificing his last night of reprieve from his co-commander to brief him on a few meetings, far be it from Ren to stop him.

“Tonight,” Ren offers, “after everyone else has retired for the evening.”

Hux shrugs, as if it doesn’t really matter to him. “Alright. Just give me a knock when you’re ready.”

Ren nods, then finds his mind slipping into a kind of dead space as Hux continues to sip at his tea, relaxed in a way he rarely is out in public.

That all changes, though, when there’s suddenly a sharp peel of laughter down the hall, followed shortly by a rather loud and boisterous conversation. As the cacophony of noise gets steadily closer, Hux closes his eyes, sighs, and says, “I hate the _Talang_ season.”

If Ren recalls correctly, _Talang_ was the fighting style he witnessed the other night at the restaurant. He figures someone important just won a match given all the hoo-rah, which is pretty much confirmed when half of Layn’s engineering team waltzes through the door, chatting incessantly about some mean hook ‘Ka-na-meh’ took to the chin in the last round.

Layn, of course, brings up the rear of his entourage, oozing smiles and general cheer as he drops into his rightful place at the head of the table, to the adjacent left of Hux. Hux is pointedly not looking at him, but this doesn’t deter Layn in the slightest. “You missed it, Armitage. It was _brilliant_!”

“I’m sure,” Hux sighs, staring down into his mug.

“Oh, don’t be so stiff,” Layn admonishes fondly, a little rosy in his cheeks, either from laughter or good drink. “I know you enjoy a bit of violence. You’ve killed a fair number yourself. Slowly, if I’m not mistaken.”

Hux turns his head toward Layn sharply. Ren’s sitting in the wrong place to see his facial expressions, but Hux sounds rather terse as he mutters, “Interrogations are a special case.  And when I kill, I do so quickly and efficiently.”

Layn waves over a waiter, who quickly pours red wine into the goblet beside his plate. Layn waggles his eyebrows at Hux before he takes a long pull of his drink.

Hux goes right on back to ignoring him.

Undeterred, Layn turns his gaze on Ren. “Your lordship, what say you? Do you toy with your victims, or do you make it quick?”

Despite Ren’s destructive tendencies and often long drawn out tantrums, his ‘victims’ usually pass on to the afterlife after the first hit. “I suppose, all things considered, I make it quick,” he admits, realizing that’s probably the truth. “The exception being, of course, interrogations. As my co-commander said, those are a special case.”

Layn’s gaze flickers briefly between Hux and Ren. He seems to sober up a little as he takes another sip of his drink. After mulling over whatever is on his mind, he waves the waiter over again and asks her to begin serving their meal.

For perhaps the first time this trip, Ren finds himself relaxing in earnest. He doesn’t say much during the meal, but neither does Hux or Layn. Rather, the engineers carry most of the conversation, the number one topic of their joint interest being the recent _Talang_ matches of the day. Two contestants were already dead, which is apparently not an uncommon occurrence during the official games. In fact, the very final match of the season is traditionally a battle to the death. The winner truly takes all, he supposes.

All too soon, the meal ends. The waiters are only just offering a customary hot beverage to polish the whole thing off when Hux excuses himself from the table. He rises from his seat, reminds Ren that he will see him in his chambers later this evening, and then bows his head graciously to Layn before leaving.

Layn doesn’t respond much beyong bowing his head in return and allowing his gaze to trail after Hux as the General takes his leave. Ren recognizes the look on his face as something almost forlorn. It pleases Ren, somewhat, to see it.

Ren’s about finished with his own meal, so he excuses himself promptly and retreats to Layn’s inner courtyard. He has some time to kill, and the garden’s lovely, and he doesn’t know when he’ll be planet-side again, so he might as well enjoy the fresh air while he still can.

But naturally, that peace doesn’t last very long.

He’s standing under the shade of a tree, admiring the ruby red blossoms dotted along its branches, when he hears someone say, “I thought the Sith only wore black.”

Ren turns to find Layn slowly making his way down the stairs to the courtyard, staring at Ren as though he were only seeing the man for the first time.

Ren supposes it was too much to hope for a little solitude outside his chambers, but that’s what he gets for not retreating immediately to his room. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes, he says, “The Sith can wear color. But I’m not a Sith. I can wear whatever I want, anytime I want, regardless.”

“Right… _‘Master of the Knights of Ren’_.” There’s a crook at the corner of Layn’s lips that feels derisive. “So, no vow of abstinence either?”

“I can drink,” Ren grumbles, tired of going in the same old circle. Everyone thought Force users were delinquent martyrs thanks to the Jedi. “I simply choose not to.”

“I’m not talking about alcohol,” Layn mutters. “I’m talking about sex.”

Ren blinks in surprise, momentarily stunned with how suddenly their conversation slipped sideways into supposedly forbidden territory. Not that he’s adverse to talking about sex. It’s just that talking about sex with the so-called lover of the man Ren himself is sexually attracted to is…is…

Oh.

Minutely, Ren smiles. “There’s no need for celibacy in my order. In fact, passion is often instrumental to my work.”

“I thought as much,” Layn replies as he saunters over, a rather thin-lipped smile plastered across his face. “Following the same line of reasoning, I suppose Armitage is also ‘instrumental’ to your work.”

If Hux knew someone thought he and Ren were an item, he’d blow his top. But because Ren finds this whole conversation funnier than he has any right to, and because it’s nice to see Layn lose his cool for a change, Ren decides to continue running with it. “He’s my co-commander. Quite often, he’s an active participant in my missions.”

Layn stops just in front of Ren, staring down at him with the inch or so of extra height he has on the younger man. “Stop beating around the bush and be frank with me, boy,” h snaps. “I’ve seen the way you look at him, and I’ve heard the way he talks about you.”

Ren didn’t realize he was staring at Hux in any particular ‘way’, although he probably was; he’s horrible at regulating his facial expressions without his mask. Likewise, he didn’t realize Hux talked about him differently than he did anyone else.

Before he can stop himself, Ren blurts out, “In what way does he talk about me?”

Layn narrows his eyes at Ren. “You see, _that’s_ what tipped me off. You’ve been his equal for two years now, and yet he says next to nothing about you. Just a few flattering words and that’s it. Why else would he be so secretive of you if the two of you weren’t already screwing?”

Probably because Hux is embarrassed of him and doesn’t want to make his organization look bad—but Ren favors Layn’s backward interpretation of the facts instead. It’s a rather ludicrous claim, although it’s made just a little more believable when Ren catches a whiff of alcohol on Layn’s breath. Liquor does weird things to the brain, after all.

“Are you drunk?” Ren asks, although he feels like he already knows the answer to that question.

“Don’t try to change the subject,” Layn snaps, inching ever closer into Ren’s personal space. “You’re meeting with him tonight. Why? Did you think you could fuck him under my roof and I wouldn’t notice?”

Layn, it would appear, is a rather poor sport when drunk. Ren could see why Hux hated the _Talang_ season if it meant putting up with a drunk lover most days.

Honestly, Ren recognizes this as the point where he should back down and clear this little matter up. However, Ren is not the most level-headed individual when it comes to emotions, a fact that Hux has been made painfully aware of since the moment they were first introduced. Therefore, he can’t be held entirely responsible for the way he squares his shoulders at Layn and irritably mutters, “How dare you presume to control our sex life.”

Said sex life is non-existent, but Layn doesn’t need to know that. He just needs to puff his chest up a little more, like he is right now, and try to pop Ren one in the face so that Ren can _finally_ retaliate in a way that’s defensible to Snoke.

Unfortunately, Layn doesn’t take a swing at him. He does, however, narrow his eyes again and say, “I had him first. If anyone holds a claim to him, it’s _me_.”

“Fat chance,” Ren snorts.

“I forbid you from pursuing him,” Layn seethes, as _if_ he had any say in the matter whatsoever. “I’ll fight you for him if I have to.”

Which are the magic words—only made less magical by the fact that Layn doesn’t immediately take up a fighting stance against him.

Ren tries to prompt him along by saying, “Right here, right now—just name your terms.”

“ _Not_ here,” Layn snaps. “At the gym down the road. _Talang_ style. If you win, you can saunter right up to his room tonight and do whatever you want with him, you little miscreant.”

If Hux had any idea that his lover was betting him off like some kind of whore, he’d probably kill someone. All the same, Ren isn’t going to correct the other man, simply because he would, in fact, like to see how Hux would react to the way Layn’s using him behind his back.

“And if I lose?” Ren asks. Not that he intends to lose, but he can see the way Layn is biting at the chomp to name his reward for a theoretically won _Talang_ match.

“Forty lashes,” Layn replies, no hesitation whatsoever. “Across the back. In public. And a life-long bane from the planet. May you never darken my doorway again.”

That’s…a tall order in comparison to what he’s willing to offer up to Ren if he loses. In fact, Ren almost feels like haggling for a little more, but it’s not as if he’ll actually be able to enjoy anything once he wins. Which he will. Win, that is, so it doesn’t actually matter what Layn wants in return.

“Deal,” Ren replies smoothly.

“Good,” Layn snorts, his smile relaxing into something a little more predatory.

But Ren isn’t worried.

There’s simply no way he’s going to lose.

~***~

Even drunk, Layn is a fairly light on his feet. He breezes out into the street and waltzes down the road to his gym, Ren trailing after him a few healthy paces back, a handful of Layn’s guards in tow. They seem surprised to see their master out and about at this hour of the night, but as soon as they realize where their bizarre little troupe is headed, Ren can sense their confusion melting aware.

Apparently, Ren isn’t the first person Layn’s challenged to a duel.

They pull up to a small building beside _Rogafin_ , the fine dining establishment where Ren witnessed his first _Talang_ match. There are a few burly men and women milling about outside at this ungodly hour, chatting and laughing, looking very much as though they just finished a good work out. They snap to attention as soon as they spot Layn and give the man a humble nod of the head as he passes. Ren receives no such treatment, but the small crowd still gives him a wide berth. They evidently know something is amiss.

Ren almost laughs at their trepidation. Whatever Layn hopes to accomplish tonight, Ren already knows he’s going to fail. Even if the other man turns out to be a formidable foe in hand to hand combat, there’s very little Layn can do to defend himself against the Force. Ren can swat him out of the ring the second their match starts. It’ll be over before it’s even begun.

The inside of the gym is rather unremarkable. There are only a handful of people inside, packing up equipment, openly surprised to see visitors at this hour of the night. When they realize Layn is one of their unexpected guests, they also scamper off, leaving Ren alone with this mad-man and his gaggle of guards.

The gym itself is a dimly lit room, large, but with a low ceiling. There are four fighting rings, each surrounded by a deep, empty moat. Layn makes a beeline for the one nearest to them on the left, shrugging off his jacket and tossing it at one of the lingering trainers before snapping at the man in their native tongue. The fellow nods his head eagerly and then darts over to a series of levers against the far wall. He pulls one, but nothing immediately happens.

“Are you familiar with the rules of _Talang_?” Layn asks as he then crosses the floor to a separate room at the back of the establishment. Uncertain of where he’s supposed to go or what he’s supposed to do, Ren follows after him.

“No,” Ren replies, “But the moves look familiar.”

“You can tap the ground or your opponent three times with an open palm to indicate your surrender,” Layn continues, ignoring his observation.  He moves over to a tall shelf beside the door where a colourful stack of clothes are folded up. He grabs what looks like a pair of blue shorts; Ren intuitively grabs a red pair himself. “Otherwise, the match only ends once someone loses consciousness. Weapons are permitted; you can aim for anything but the eyes. Any questions?”

“Does Armitage know you consider him a possession?”

Layn pauses momentarily. He gives Ren a long, hard look and then says, “I belong to him just as much as he belongs to me.”

Ren shrugs, because he doesn’t believe that for a minute, but Layn ignores him in favor of stepping into a metal stall and slamming the door shut behind him, undoubtedly to get dressed.

Ren’s not in much of a mood to play dress up, but he figures he’ll humor the man. At least until he hands Layn his ass, that is.

Stepping into the adjacent stall, Ren strips down and pulls on the shorts. He’s not sure what he’s supposed to wear in the way of footwear, but thankfully Layn is barefoot when they both step out. The other man then grabs a pair of matching knuckle gloves off a second shelf and stomps back out into the gym, as if he can hardly wait to get started.

Sighing in mild annoyance, Ren grabs a set of gloves for himself and makes his way back to Layn’s chosen ring. The trainer is still there. He helps tighten the wrist bands on Layn’s gloves. Then he helps Ren with his, glancing anxiously between the two men, as if he knows all too well how badly this little endeavour is going to turn out.

Ren has no doubt in his mind that Layn must make a formidable competitor on his home world, given what Ren’s heard about him and Layn’s surprisingly coordinated efforts in dragging Ren all the way down here despite his inebriated state. He’s genuinely curious how well the man will pull off his moves in the ring.

“If you want to back out, now’s your chance,” Layn informs him, giving Ren an unimpressed once-over, as if the dirt on the soles of his shoes are more worthy of his attention.

Ren has the sudden urge to slam the man face-first into the ground. Instead, he smiles thinly and gestures out toward the ring. “After you, your lordship.”

Layn sneers at him, face still somewhat ruddy from his overindulgence in alcohol tonight, and finally crosses the wooden ladder laid out over the moat. It rocks as he steps between the rungs, followed shortly by Ren. Once they’re both over, the trainer yanks the whole thing back to his side.

Layn stops in the middle of the ring and turns around, shaking out his arms as if trying to get the blood flowing in them again. Then he spreads his legs slightly, bends his knees, and holds his hands up in an offensive position.

Ren rolls his shoulders back to ease the bit of tension building there and, quite relaxed, takes up his own fighting stance. “The General doesn’t seem entirely happy with your arrangement,” he says, hoping Layn is prone to making more of a fool of himself once more of his raw anger is thrown into the mix.

“You don’t know him like I do,” Layn hisses, launching himself forward.

Layn cuts the distance between them down with considerable speed. In fact, it’s only just as he’s beginning to curl his hand around the back of Ren’s neck that Ren manages to backstep out of reach. He’s stunned, but only momentarily. He quickly swats Layn’s hand away when the other man reaches out to grab him again, then follows up with a punch of his own. However, his fist only manages to graze the side of Layn’s jaw as the other man deftly side-steps, smiling in that small way of his, quiet and condescending.

Ren feels his own irritation beginning to pique. He’s tired of Layn acting like he owns the world (though he’s probably not too far off the money on that account). Ren therefore decides now is as good as any time to put this little charade to rest and finally turns his focus to the Force.

…

…But there’s nothing there.

He’s caught completely off guard for the second time tonight. He’s reaching for the universe, but all that he finds is a void, cold and bleak and uninviting. Unbidden, he wonders if this is what Force-null people experience in their day-to-day lives.

In Ren’s confusion, Layn strikes again.

This time, his fist connects with Ren’s jaw. He also somehow manages to hook his left foot behind Ren’s ankle simultaneously, nearly tripping him with a small leg sweep. Ren stumbles back gracelessly but somehow manages to stay upright, immediately settling back into his fighting stance, still searching for the Force.

“Afraid?” Layn asks, voice low and dangerous. He shuffles to one side, bouncing lightly on the balls of his feet. He’s ready to make his next move. He’s simply waiting.

Ren doesn’t know how the other man is able to do it, but he’s blocking the Force with frightening ease. And yet, he isn’t a Force user himself. Ren would’ve known the moment they met.

This enigma is unlike anything Ren’s ever encountered before.

“Delighted,” Ren mutters. In truth, he hasn’t had a great sparring partner in a long time, usually because he relies too much on the Force to incapacitate his opponents. However, he isn’t without his own tricks. Both Luke and Snoke always pushed him toward learning how to fight without his greater abilities.

The next time Layn strikes, Ren is more prepared. He knocks Layn’s hand aside and jabs at the other man’s face. However, Layn keeps enough distance between them to lean his head far enough back to avoid busting his nose open on Ren’s knuckles. He even smiles as he bounces back a step, seemingly pleased. “Here we go now,” he murmurs in amusement.

Ren hates the idea of being used for anyone’s amusement, so he moves into a more offensive mode. He lunges with fist and with foot, trying to hook Layn’s ankle much in the same way the other man tried to take him down earlier.

Unfortunately, this is apparently just what Layn was waiting for. He grabs Ren’s outstretched hand as soon as it’s within reach and tugs him bodily past him, toppling Ren down onto the ground. Layn follows quickly after him, flattening himself against Ren’s back as he worms his right arm around Ren’s throat.

Intuitively, Ren tries to roll them over. However, Layn keeps his legs somewhat spread, bracing a foot on either side of Ren’s legs to roll him back onto his stomach. Black dots begin to dance across Ren’s vision.

There’s no way in hell he’s losing.

He jabs his elbow back at an odd angle, catching Layn in the ribs. Layn wheezes above him, loosening his hold long enough that Ren can push his arm away with his other hand. Then he tries to roll over a second time, successfully now, before scrambling back onto his feet.

His vision is still somewhat blurred as he tries to breathe again in slow, even breaths. He watches as Layn slowly rises to his full height, then Ren asks his dreadful question: “How are you doing it?”

“Practice,” Layn laughs before he glances over at the trainer and shouts something in his native tongue. The man scampers off to follow his orders.

Ren realizes some of the people who were milling about outside have now moved back into the gym to watch the fight unfold. He tries to ignore them as he sighs and says, “I’m talking about the Force. How are you blocking it?”

Layn laughs again and gestures to the moat. “Ysalamiri. You’re not the first Force user who’s tried to cheat at _Talang_.”

Ren had no idea this planet took their sport seriously enough to prevent anyone from gaining an outside advantage. It did explain how he was unable to read Layn’s mind back at _Rogafin_. Two men were fighting that evening in a ring not too unlike this one. No doubt there were ysalamiri crawling around there, too, the miserable little lizards of Myrkr projecting their natural Force-neutral bubble.

Despite how annoying it is to deal with ysalamiri, at least now Ren has an easy explanation for why he’s unable to tap into his powers. He’s not crazy, nor is he losing his touch.

Layn is simply cheating in his own way.

The trainer returns shortly, two knives in hand. He tosses them across the moat, and they land, more or less, close to either man’s feet. Both Ren and Layn reach down simultaneously to grab their respective weapons. Then they each crouch down low, inching closer, waiting for the right moment to strike.

Layn, once again, makes the first daring move. He lunges, blade angled toward Ren’s abdomen. Of course, Ren blocks this blow with his elbow, but Layne stupidly lets his momentum continue to carry him forward. Consequently, he draws his arm up at an odd angle and cuts Ren along the left side of his face, very nearly taking his eye out in a one quick swipe.

As Ren ducks aside, face stinging, he wonders if that had been intentional. Given the look on Layn’s smiling face, it probably was.

Silently, Ren admonishes himself for defending his face in that moment instead of retaliating with a blow of his own. It’s clear that _Talang_ favors moves that put the attacker at some kind of risk just for the chance at landing a great hit. Considering that Layn’s drunk to boot, this could make for a dangerous mix.

“I thought you couldn’t aim for the eyes.”

“I wasn’t,” Layn shrugs, switching his knife from his right hand to his left.

“So you’re a liar,” Ren chuckles. “No wonder Hux doesn’t want to marry you.”

“Bite your tongue,” Layn hisses.

“Why? There’s hardly any point in either of us pretending it isn’t true.”

Layn’s moving again before he can finish his sentence. The other man brings his knife down in a wide arch, grazing Ren’s knuckle guard when Ren moves to block him. In the next split second, he allows Ren to knock his arm aside in favor of bringing up his right leg in a sharp kick to the ribs. It knocks the wind out of Ren and sends him stumbling backward.

Layn hits him hard enough that Ren knows the other man’s at least fractured something. A fire ignites in his chest as he tries to inhale. It's an honest labor to breathe, which is undoubtedly the opening Layn was hoping for. The man is suddenly moving again, knife raised, either to blind Ren completely or try his hand at something much worse.

Unfortunately for Layn, Ren’s no stranger to pain. In fact, Force or no Force, he knows how to utilize his own suffering to his advantage. He allows the fire in his chest to ignite a similar fire in his veins, that first lick of true anger burning through him as he crouches low and lunges for Layn’s stomach.

He takes the man down in one fierce burst of energy, satisfied by the sound of Layn’s knife bouncing off the ground and skidding off to nowhere as they collide with the ground. Now unarmed, Layn doesn’t stand a chance as he tries to roll away, trapped first on his side and then his belly, struggling for freedom as Ren braces his arm around his opponent’s neck.

Ren sees a familiar darkness as he funnels the pain in his ribs into something more productive. It’s the same anger and passion he channels whenever he uses the force, utilizing it to keep Layn pinned until the man’s attempts at squirming out from Ren turn feeble. Eventually, Layn stops moving altogether, at which point Ren absolutely contemplates killing him.

Vaguely, he’s aware of someone yelling. A glance at the crowd shows that the trainer has slammed the ladder back into place and is scurrying across it now to intervene. The sight of him almost toppling over into the moat halfway across amuses Ren enough that his anger begins to ebb. He releases Layn before the trainer reaches him, satisfied to have embarrassed Layn with this defeat in front of such a modest crowd.

“You win!” the trainer snaps at him, gesturing for Ren to get off his opponent already.

Ren humors him, but as soon as he’s upright, he spits down on his comatose opponent.

“That’s not allowed!” the trainer shrieks in indignation.

“And?” Ren challenges, feeling his anger bubbling back to the surface.

Wisely, the man says nothing more as he crouches down and rolls Layn onto his back. Worriedly, he gently slaps Layn’s face. Layn groans pathetically.

Content, Ren takes this opportunity to make his exit. He walks across the ladder confidently, internally pleased with the way his audience parts fearfully to allow him passage to the changing room. He takes as little time as possible to slip on his robes and leave, eager to reconnect with the Force and begin channeling it toward mending his fractured rib.

On his way out, he catches sight of Layn sitting upright in the ring, somewhat dazed, scowling at Ren as though he couldn’t hate another man in the universe more than him.

Ren flashes him a quick smile.

~***~

~***~

Of all the parts of him that leave the gym unbruised, he’s most pleased that his ego makes the list.

And, honestly, it’s really the only part of him that needs to exit the building relatively unscathed. He’s no stranger to physical pain. It helps to sharpen the mind; keeps his feet firmly planted on the right side of the Force. It’s put the red back in his blood and reminds him that he needs to put more effort into practicing combat without his powers. He’ll need to look into altering his training methods to prevent any such fiasco from happening again, but it does him good to know he’s still a threat all his own.

However, his good mood sinks a little as he shuffles into Layn’s most humble abode and crosses the inner courtyard to the guest suites, glancing up at the chronometer and realizing it’s already well past midnight. If ever there was a time to debrief with Hux, this is certainly _not_ it. Even though the General usually sleeps very little in a cycle, Ren knows his co-commander likes to keep to a strict schedule. He should be out like a light right now.

Which is why it’s something of a surprise that, while Ren’s tiptoeing down the hall to his chambers, Hux’s door swings open to reveal the man wrapped up in his black robe, hair soft and loose from a good wash, one fine eyebrow cocked up in an expression that’s equal parts curiosity and disappointment.

Ren could easily do without Hux’s disapproval tonight, so he puffs up his chest a little in indignation—but inhaling so deeply reignites the sharp stabbing pain in his ribs. He winces and curls slightly forward, wondering how pissed Layn would be if Ren were to vomit up blood all over his lovely velveteen carpet.

Hux’s eyes roll briefly heavenward before he steps out of his room, keeping his hand on the door to hold it open in an unspoken invitation. Ren only hesitates momentarily before stepping cautiously inside.

“I take it you won?” Hux sighs as he shuts the door behind them. Ren’s not entirely sure what he’s doing here—are they going through with the meeting after all?—so he stands somewhat dumbly in the centre of the room as Hux breezes past him toward the chaise lounge by the balcony, dropping into it with more grace than Ren would be capable of even on a good day.

He’s glad Hux’s first assumption wasn’t that he lost. All the same, he’s curious to know just how aware Hux was of what transpired tonight. “Did you know our most gracious host was going to pick a fight with me?” he asks.

“He misses the ‘good ol’ days’ as a _Talang_ champion,” Hux supplies. “Honestly, I knew he wanted to pick a fight with someone, but I didn’t know that someone was going to be you. You’ve been remarkably composed these past few days. Not his usual choice for an opponent.”

Stars…Hux obviously has no idea how deeply Layn’s been reading into their relationship. “He apparently felt I was a threat.”

“A threat to what?”

“His…” They’re less than a minute into their conversation, and already Ren’s said too much. “Size. I’m bigger— _broader_ across the shoulders, I mean.”

As Ren mentally kicks himself over the stupidity of that particular answer, Hux squints his eyes marginally at his co-commander.  “I see…How unusual.” Raising his left arm, Hux braces his elbow against the back of the couch and props his head up against his closed fist. Staring intently at Ren, he asks, “What did you win?”

…

This feels like a trap.

Clearing his throat a little, Ren faintly asks, “Win?”

“Layn always turns into a complete moron when he’s drunk,” Hux replies, just as quiet, weighing Ren with his eyes, “which is when he usually picks a fight. But even the fight itself isn’t really enough for him—he always has to make a bet out of it, too. The higher the stakes, the better. Which brings me to my question: _what_ did he offer you?”

Hux _knows_.

Ren’s mouth goes a little dry, so he does the only thing he can think of to defend himself from the General’s scrutiny by deflecting his question to another topic of conversation altogether: “Are you going to marry him?”

There’s a moment of stunned silence from Hux. However, as with most inquiries into the General’s personal life, Hux quickly turns the situation back in his favor. Coolly, he says, “I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours. Now, _what_ did Jorde offer you?”

Ren hesitates another moment. But then he realizes something. He, _too_ , could completely turn this situation in has favor with just a few choice words.

And he doesn’t even have to lie.

Relaxing his shoulders, Ren replies, “An uninterrupted night in your company.”

Predictably, a storm begins brewing in the General’s eyes. He arches a delicate eyebrow and stiffly asks, “‘ _Uninterrupted_ ’…in my _‘company’_?”

“An innuendo, I believe,” Ren clarifies. “I think he mistook our intent to debrief as something a little more salacious.”

Hux takes a slow, deep breath, chest inflating quietly as that storm continues to gain momentum. Ren’s seen that look before, but this is the first time it’s been directed at someone other than himself. In fact, Hux is staring at the door now as if he has half a mind to run Layn down and lay into him for this transgression. 

With his usual feline grace, Hux rises from his seat and breezes past Ren to the door. Hand on the knob, he glances over his shoulder at Ren briefly, gives him a quick once-over, and says, “You’re going to bleed on the carpet. Feel free to use my en suite to clean yourself up. I’ll request a fresh change of clothes and a first aid kit for you.”

Ren so _desperately_ wants to see whatever shitshow is about go down for Layn, but, under Hux’s fiery gaze, he buckles and obediently retreats into the en suite, where he’s assaulted with his bruised reflection in the large mirror above the sink.

Unfortunately, Layn did quite the number on him. The gash on the side of his face is still seeping blood and will need to be stitched up. The bruising along his ribs is also truly abominable, but he can already feel the tissue mending itself. He’ll just have to slap some bacta on it in the meantime and hope for the best.

His slight embarrassment at receiving such a sound beating from a Force-null is thankfully a small discomfort in the face of his double victory, having defeated the man both through combat and by sending Hux flying into a cold fury over his paramour. As he hops into the shower to rinse the blood and sweat off his body, Ren tries to picture how miserable Layn is going to look come morning when he sees their little retinue off. Or, better yet, maybe he won’t show his face at all tomorrow. Maybe he’ll learn a little humility from this whole experience and keep to the shady underside of the rock he crawled out from under.

Feeling refreshed, Ren snatches a grey towel off the rack by the shower and wraps it around his waist. He uses a second to dry his hair, then cracks open the bathroom door to peek into Hux’s room, hoping someone’s dropped off a change of clothes by now.

Sure enough, he spots a stack of grey material on the small coffee table by the chaise lounge. Hux has also returned. He’s now standing beside the bed, wiping his hands off with a small cloth as he stares down at the first aid kit open on top of the duvet. His gaze darts across the room to Ren, then he waves a hand toward his bed and says, “Please, have a seat.”

Ren eyes his clothes momentarily before stepping out into the room. He doesn’t particularly care if Hux sees him half-naked. In fact, Ren has always been rather proud of his physique. He’s a behemoth in comparison to the General’s lithe form. His stature alone demands attention.

And he gets it in spades from Hux, who whips out a needle with a little too much enthusiasm, barely giving Ren a moment to sit back on the mattress before he begins prodding at the cut on the side of Ren’s face. He dabs at it briefly with an antiseptic-soaked cotton ball before digging right into the task at hand.

Ren imagines his co-commander is getting a kick out of causing him any amount of pain, however small, even if said pain doesn’t really register anywhere on the scale Ren’s used to enduring. However, Hux surprises him by finishing in a timely fashion, smirking at his handiwork as he gently presses against the skin next to the wound to test the stitches before reaching over to grab a small tube of bacta cream from the kit—and it’s then that Ren catches sight of something unusual, that something being the pale sliver of Hux’s thigh through the part in the front of his robe.

Ren’s mouth goes dry again, but for an entirely different reason this time. He also stupidly lets his body act before his brain as he begins to reach forward to part Hux’s robe a little further. Thankfully, he stops himself short of touching the General; unfortunately, the aborted motion of his outstretched hand does not go unnoticed by Hux.

Hux stares at his hand for a long, hard moment before his gaze migrates up to Ren’s face.

“I—” Ren says, choking on the word.

Hux slips his own hand under Ren’s chin and tilts it upward, finally breaking Ren’s gaze from his nether regions. “Well…you _did_ win, did you not?”

Ren’s brain stalls over Hux’s response. It continues to lie in a hopelessly unresponsive heap at the base of his skull as Hux parks his right knee beside Ren’s thigh on the bed and leans forward, invitingly close.

With a voice heavy with the promise of the most delightful kind of danger, Hux murmurs, “Yes or no, Lord Ren?”

With herculean effort, Ren’s brain shudders back to life.

Dumbly, he nods.

Hux simultaneously settles down comfortably onto Ren’s lap and presses a kiss against his open mouth, his bare thigh warm against Ren’s large hand. Ren’s not stupid enough to think Hux is acting on any repressed sexual urges for his co-commander, but revenge sex sounds like something that’s right up his alley. Revenge ‘anything’, really. He’s heard stories of how far the General is willing to go to get even with someone. This is, no doubt, one of the most delectable ways he could go about doing it to Layn.

Ren simply hopes this isn’t just a tease. He squeezes Hux’s thigh a little hard, slipping his hand up the other when Hux decides to properly straddle his lap. He’s warm and smooth to the touch. He’s also got a devilish tongue. Ren finds himself chasing after him when Hux pulls his head away, stopped only by the splayed hand against his chest, gentle against his ribs, simply keeping him at bay.

He’s just about to complain when Hux’s hand drops to the front of Ren’s towel. He tugs it open and then pushes against Ren’s chest again, this time urging him to lie back. Gingerly, Ren goes without question.

“Not a _word_ of this is to make it back to the _Finalizer_ ,” Hux demands rather sternly, at odds with the way he slowly tugs the knot of his robe loose and lets the silky material fall back off his shoulders. All at once, his pale, supple form is made bare before Ren’s ravenous gaze. “Is that clear?”

“Agreed,” Ren returns, rock hard, blindly rummaging through the first aid kit with one hand as he drinks in the sight above him.

Hux gently swats his hand away from the kit and leans over to grab something just on the other side of it. It turns out to be a tube of lubricant, which is just Ren what was hoping for. Hux squeezes a generous amount into his other hand and has no qualms whatsoever about grabbing Ren’s dick right from the get-go, slicking Ren with what almost seems to be impatience.

Ren’s hard enough that he finds himself dancing dangerously close to the precipice of ending this prematurely just from the smooth glide of Hux’s fingers along his shaft. Thankfully, Hux can read his reactions well enough that he squeezes the base before any such thing can occur. He looks horribly smug when he says, “Been a while, has it?”

Ren’s not about to ruin a good thing by rising to the bait and arguing over his (lack of) sexual experience, so he tries to focus on slowing his racing heart and says, “Pass me the lube. Let’s get started on you, shall we?”

Surprisingly, Hux tosses the tube into the first aid kit. “I’m well ahead of you,” he says by way of an explanation. “You were taking awfully long in that shower.”

He wasn’t (at least, he doesn’t think he was), but he appreciates Hux’s ability to think ahead. Shortly, he gets to appreciate his warmth as well as Hux shuffles up Ren’s thighs, lines them up, and slowly sinks down onto his co-commander.

Ren doesn’t know what to do or think beyond grabbing Hux by the hips hard enough to leave bruises. Hux is gracious enough not to slap his hands away. Instead, the General takes a moment to get himself settled, and then he begins rocking his hips in the most tantalizing way. Ren bucks up against him, excited, his eyes squeezed shut in an effort not to lose it right then and there.

Hux does a remarkable job of dragging the whole process out. He establishes a good rhythm but regularly slows when Ren feels close or when the pain in his side reignites, stretching the sex out for all its worth. He only seems to lose interest in drawing it out any further when he finally nears the precipice, stroking himself in time to the sensual roll of his hips.

As he begins to increase his pace, Hux locks eyes with Ren and, with a small curl at the corner of his lips, says, “You really are bigger, you know.”

And _that_ there is what ultimately pushes Ren over the edge.

As his orgasm burns down his spine, he swears it takes his consciousness with it. A speckled darkness obscures his vision momentarily as he fights to catch his breath, still strung along by the hard slam of Hux’s pelvis against his own as Hux works out the last of his pleasure.

Ren lies there in something of a daze as Hux leans over him, hands braced against the bed on either side of Ren, heaving. The General’s head hangs forward for a moment before he sits back up, still straddling Ren, and runs a hand through his red hair. He looks good disheveled. Like he just might be human.

Ren’s enjoying the warmth that’s beginning to settle in his bones when Hux suddenly taps him on the stomach with the back of his hand. “Now’s hardly the time to sleep,” the General murmurs.

“You’re not tired?” Ren asks, quietly marveling at Hux’s stamina. He’s more limber than Ren imagined.

“Are you?” Hux inquires, an implicit challenge in his voice.

Ren decides to go with a non-verbal answer by rolling them rapidly over, dislodging the first aid kit from the bed, and demonstrating just how much of virile sonofabitch he can be, injuries bedamned.

~***~

An hour before dawn finds Ren lying under a flimsy white sheet on the General’s bed, the duvet having been kicked off long ago, Hux himself tucked up against him, still only lightly dozing from their latest bout of sex. Ren himself is wide awake, one arm curled around his companion, staring up at the ceiling. He wonders how fortunate he was to tag along to Saxt-5 on this of all missions, and it’s as he’s reflecting on yesterday’s events that something occurs to him.

“…Who picked out the suit?”

Hux shifts beside him, head nudged comfortably under the crook of Ren’s chin. “What?” he mumbles.

“The blue suit,” Ren clarifies, frowning gently in confusion. “The one I wore to dinner last night.”

There’s a sigh of long-suffering from his exhausted companion before Hux says, “What makes you think someone picked it out specifically for you?”

“I made it clear to the staff that grey is my only preference, and the only time I _was_ given a color selection was when you sent over those godawful robes.” The corner of Ren’s lip curls unbidden into a self-satisfied smirk as he finally figures it out. “It was you, wasn’t it? You intended for us to match for dinner, to hopefully push Layn over the edge toward doing something phenomenally stupid. You wanted to use his bad behavior and jealousy over me as an excuse not to marry him.”

Hux, remarkably, doesn’t budge. “That’s a rather wild speculation, Kylo Ren.”

Ren almost laughs at his weak parry. “Considering our track record, it really isn’t. I don’t know why I didn’t realize it sooner. You made the conscious decision _not_ to kick me off the planet when I showed up unexpectedly, _and_ you’ve refrained all this time from bad-mouthing me to Layn. You wanted to make sure I didn’t look like a bad competitor for your affections, didn’t you?”

Hux snorts at the word ‘affections’. He also finally rises from his warm spot on the bed, planting his elbows on either side of Ren’s head to stare him dead in the eye. After a long, unsettling moment, in which Hux keeps him utterly pinned under his scrutiny, the General says, “Fine, I set you up. Are you happy now?”

Ren licks his lips in an attempt to prevent them from splitting into a fierce smile, but he still ends up grinning regardless. “Conniving as always, General.”

“I don’t want to retire,” Hux mutters. “And Jorde and I were never in a monogamous relationship to begin with, so I don’t know where he got the great idea to propose. I needed someone he wouldn’t _really_ want to cross paths with to scare him off the idea entirely, so I took whatever opportunity presented itself when you showed up uninvited.”

“Layn’s scared of me?” Ren inquires, somewhat flattered.

Up until Hux snorts again. “Not particularly. The fact of the matter is, the only person closer to Emperor Jafe than Jorde is Snoke; you’re one of Snoke’s favorite pupils. If Jorde tried to kill you tonight, he’ll see how dangerously close he came to sending himself to the execution block once he sobers up today. It then stands to reason that if he _also_ thought there was an intimate relationship between us, he’ll now be less likely to try to advance our own.”

“Clever,” Ren murmurs, eyeing Hux’s lips. Admittedly, that’s one of the things he’s always liked about Hux—his ingenuity, that is. His ability to spin a fine web. Except, of course, when Hux is plotting against him.

“So, congratulations,” Hux sighs. “You figured me out. Can I go back to sleep now?”

Ren, still mesmerized by his how lovely Hux looks in the dim moonlight streaming into the room, asks, “What do I get as compensation for keeping this between us?”

Hux considers him for a moment. “Well…what do you want as compensation?”

Emboldened, he says, “Can we keep this up on the Finalizer?”

“Not on your life,” Hux says, unwavering.

Ren can tell the General isn’t going to budge on his answer. Pity. All the same, Ren still wants something for his troubles. “Then how about once more? Just for the memories?”

Hux rolls his eyes and shakes his head, exasperated. But then he slowly ducks down, teasing Ren with a particularly deep kiss.

Then Ren rolls them over and goes about the delightful process of taking the General apart all over again.

~***~

Breakfast is served to them via room service, because part of Hux’s original plan was always to leave at the crack of dawn, nixing the idea of a big send off in the dining hall. Just in case Layn had any doubts about whether or not Ren took his original prize against the other man at face value, he makes sure to answer Hux’s door wrapped up a towel when a servant swings by to deliver the General’s food. The young woman goes beet red at the sight of him and quickly scampers off, the light of gossip gleaming in her eyes. 

Ren certainly hopes it reaches Layn’s ears before the end of the hour.

It must, because they find Layn waiting for them at the docking centre just outside the city limits. As Ren and Hux come strolling down the walkway to the General’s shuttle, Layn shoots Ren a look that could almost render meat from bone—but then his eyes land on Hux next, and a sliver of fear and regret pierces through the haze of his anger.

Ren hangs back with the engineers as Hux waves Layn aside for a little one-on-one chat. Ren’s only half-watching the crew as they check their equipment before packing it into the ship, instead keenly focused on Hux’s vicious tongue-lashing that is just below the threshold for proper eavesdropping. The engineers wisely go about their business as if nothing were amiss—except Lieutenant Freya, who sidles up next to Ren and says, “I’ve been informed that your TIE-fighter is primed and ready to go, sir.”

Ren savors the cowed look on Layn’s face a moment longer before turning to Freya, “You know, Lieutenant, something peculiar occurred to me this morning.”

“Oh?” she asks, openly curious.

“I’m assuming you know what transpired last night?”

Freya blushes a little. “Uh, well…yes, sir. You were rather loud, I’m afraid.”

“It turns out the General was only using me to get on Layn’s nerves,” he elaborates. “He compensated me for my troubles last night, of course, but I can’t help but wonder why he was so confident I would ultimately agree to fight Layn on his behalf in the first place.”

“Curious,” Freya admits, side-eyeing her companions as they hustle to load up their shuttle. They’re almost done. “Well, if that’s all—”

“I’m assuming he wouldn’t have made that gamble if he didn’t think I was interested in him to some degree,” Ren interjects. “ _You_ wouldn’t happen to know anything about that, would you?”

Any of the tension Freya might’ve been holding in her shoulders drops away as she stares Ren dead in the eyes, smiles a small smile that’s curiously similar to something he’s seen Hux brandish before, and says, “If you’re wondering whether or not I informed him of your balcony antics, then, yes, I did.”

Ren blinks at her, mildly surprised.

She ratted him out…

No wonder she's one of Hux’s proteges.

Despite the fact that she turned on him, Ren can’t find it in himself to be angry at her. After all, she was instrumental in his little success last night. So he nods, dismissing her, and watches as she marches calmly onto the shuttle to join her comrades.

She’s going to make a half-way decent Captain someday.

Ren turns his attention back on Hux and Layn, both of whom look considerably calmer themselves. In fact, Hux leaves Layn with something of a smirk on his face, possibly having salvaged his relationship with the other man to a degree that he finds acceptable. Layn still shoots Ren one last dirty look, but Ren bears it with a smile.

He thinks if Hux continues his annual visits to Saxt-5, he’s going to tag along for the foreseeable future.

~***~

The End.

~***~

 

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: More artwork, as promised! Click the x's to check it out: [X](http://5ovspades.tumblr.com/post/178686046882/to-game-of-inches-by-therealhunterzolomon-for-the), [X](http://5ovspades.tumblr.com/post/178686045315/to-game-of-inches-by-therealhunterzolomon-for-the), [X](http://5ovspades.tumblr.com/post/178636923077/to-a-game-of-inches-by-therealhunterzolomon-for-the)


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